Prevail
by Heidi Ahlmen
Summary: When forced to team up with a partner she would under no circumstances trust in order to recover a treasure perhaps lost forever into deep waters takes Lara Croft to darkest Africa. When teamwork fails between two women, does personal gain prevail honour?
1. 1 Unpleasant conditions

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail  
  
by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Enjoying the luxury of waking up in her own bed for a change, Lara Croft streched under the blanket and her toes poked out from underneath. The chilly air of her bedroom hit her feet and felt uncomfortable. Winston usually opened the window at about ten in the morning and after that, on most mornings, went shopping to a nearby London suburb. Surrey, where Lara housed her inherited mansion, was located just outside Greater London.  
  
Lara checked her alarm clock. The digital numbers read 10:23. So it was after ten in the morning. Lara noticed she had forgotten to set the alarm.  
  
She was running terribly late.  
  
Jumping out from bed, she mentally thanked herself for choosing suitable clothes the day before. She quickly pulled off her king-size T-shirt that she usually slept in - keeps you warm both at home and in a tent, and slipped into her long, dark skirt and a matching silk blouse. She struggled a minute with the blazer, and took a look at herself in the mirror. Good enough.  
  
She ran to her chest-of-drawers, and pulled out a hairbrush along with some rubber bands and made a quick plait, holding the bands in her teeth while braiding.  
  
After grabbing her car keys and wondering if she still should take her motorcycle, Lara ran downstairs - and back up to recover her lipstick. In her beedroom she took some time to check the thermometer. Five degrees minus. Without hesitation, Lara grabbed her car keys. It was no weather for the bike. Then she rushed downstairs, and mentally braced herself for the London traffic.  
  
An hour later Lara arrived in her nominal job homebase - the British Museum. Taking a look over her shoulders to ensure noone was trying to sneak in after her, Lara dialled the key code, heard the office wing entrance door click open, and went in. After patting the snow off her long trenchcoat she walked down a well-lit office, passing small rooms housing archives, computers and desks. She dug out a nametag describing her as a curator of the museum's department of Egyptian antiquities specializing in funerary practices - when she had been employed years earlier they had spent painstaking hours trying to figure what to call her - as Lara never spent much time in the museum itself, rather than recovering artifacts for it. She didn't even have a desk. Not that she wanted one.  
  
Continuing her walk towards a set of elevators she pinned the name tag to her blazer.  
  
She had received a phone call the previous day from the museum director Garret Graham, inviting her to a meeting at eleven sharp the next morning. In Lara's opinion he was a boring but frank man, but he did his job well and had earned his employees' respect during his twenty years at the museum. He was in charge of Lara's off-budget hunts. 'For the good of the museum', he always said.  
  
Lara met him at the lobby, and they began walking towards his office.  
  
"So, what's the big news this time?" Lara asked, smiling secretly. Something was up, she could tell.  
  
Garret opened a door to her, letting her to another corridor.  
  
"I think we have a job for you." Lara's mouth opened, prepared to ask something. Garret raised his hand to silence her.  
  
"I know you'd like to know more right away, but there's something you need to know first. You will be working with someone this time."  
  
Lara took a silent minute to adjust to the thought. "I know it's not my usual way, but if the person in question is competent, I could take it under serious consideration." Politeness always worked in quietly dismissing unpleasant things, she'd learned.  
  
Garret's expression changed.  
  
"I'm terribly sorry, but this time the partner side is not optional. In all honesty - we need the money. If you'll take the job you will be paid well. I suggest you take it - we don't want the kind of publicity that would ensue if you didn't - 'museum mascot leaves the house in trouble'."  
  
Lara's face hardened and she stopped to eye Garret suspiciously. "I am not a museum mascot. Let me guess. The person in question is a small-time archaeologist, wanting to repress all rights of mine towards whatever the discovery in question is. You know I don't work that way, Garret dear."  
  
"It's not quite like that, I can tell you. Your work has always been considered valuable here. I apologize for my earlier expression. "  
  
Not granted, Lara thought secretly. In all honesty, she was getting a bad feeling about all this.  
  
"So, who is this much-talked about partner then? Seems like you've got a job stacked here that might be too much for me alone, huh?" Lara remarked more bittersweetly than necessary.  
  
Garret laughed. They had arrived at his office door. He dug out his keys to open it. "No, it's just that... Anyway," he said while opening the door, "Come and meet your about-to-be-partner. Dr. Ross, meet Dr. Lara Croft."  
  
Lara entered Garret's office.  
  
The face of the person sitting in Garret's guest chair was not unfamiliar to her. It was Josephine Ross.  
  
She was roughly Lara's age, dressed very informally. She wore dark blue jeans, and a wide-cleavaged black top with a dark violet unbuttoned blouse. Her little-over shoulder-lenght hair was braided, as was Lara's, but a lot tighter. Generally she looked like a field archaeologist, but Lara knew better not to let the posture betray her. Josephine's appearance was as self-assured and obstinate as ever. She was slightly taller than Lara, but not as slim. She had a fine figure, and she was attractive in a very original, a bit rough way. Josephine smiled at Lara, who didn't smile back.  
  
The two women eyed each other for a split second.  
  
Lara turned in her heels at a speed only possible for a lady, and walked out of the office, buttoning her coat. Garret jogged after her.  
  
"Garret, the next time you are planning on wasting my time, please inform me in advance so I can decline politely on the phone," she spat out, sounding in her own opinion perhaps a little too indiscreet.  
  
Lara continued walking, Garret following after her.  
  
"Now what seems to be the problem?" He sounded a bit annoyed.  
  
Lara stopped and turned to face him. "I am not working with her. You can take your job and give it over to someone else."  
  
"Have you met before?" Garret asked, feeling dizzy by the sudden changes of the atmosphere.  
  
"Have we met before?" Lara snapped. "Yes, we have. Thrice, in fact. That woman is one of the most self-disillusioned, dishonorable, and unpleasant people I have met. Last time we met in Chicago, it ended in an altercation."  
  
Garret didn't buy it just yet. Fingering a pen in his pocket, he stopped Lara by tapping her on the shoulder.  
  
"Let's just... Can't we at least go in and have a decent conversation? You know as well as I do that the work in the Great Hall is swallowing more money than we ever anticipated. Dr. Ross has found traces of a possible discovery that would help in bringing big funders to the museum."  
  
"I'm quite familiar with the financial situation. I work here, unless you'd forgotten," Lara reminded. Even though I only spend some ten days here a year and my car park square is always taken when I drop by.  
  
"So you understand the need for this find? Lara, will you please consider it?"  
  
Considering is far from actually taking the job, Lara thought, and followed Garret back to his office.  
  
Garret stopped to look at Lara from under his thick brows before reopening the door.  
  
"Now, let us do this properly." He let Lara in. She stopped at the doorway. Josephine rose from her chair.  
  
"Dr. Ross, meet Dr. Lara Croft." Garret introduced more formally than necessary. The woman offered her hand for Lara to shake. She did so, suspiciously.  
  
"Lara; Pleased to meet you again," Josephine said politely.  
  
"Josephine; I honestly wish I could say the same," Lara said, smiling graciously. She sat down to the only guest chair in the office which Josephine had obviously reserved for herself. Josephine remained standing.  
  
"So, what brings you here so soon after Christmas?" Lara asked, eyeing her counterpart suspiciously.  
  
They indeed had met before. They had attended Chicago university the same time, the only difference being that Lara had written her senior thesis two years prior to Josephine and Jean-Yves. Josephine had always seemed to think - and made pretty damn sure everyone knew her opinion - that Lara had gotten through everything too easily. Lara had heard that Josephine had had high hopes of becoming the youngest summer dig curator in the museum history, and had been very bitter about Lara beating her by becoming a curator during her first summer. She hadn't shared the story with Garret, as he was an 'international contacts' fetishist, and would have forced Lara to keep up with Josephine. It would have been a real burden, so Lara had conceitedly decided to shut up about their acquaintance. Eversince Lara left Chicago, whenever they had met, it had ended in catastrophy. Dr. Josephine Ross seemed to be the one and only person in the world capable of making Lara lose her temper completely. Once she had caught herself screaming at Josephine at a museum banquet, with eight hundred pairs of eyes staring at her. Josephine had called her a grave robber with a lousy knowledge of egyptology - all that just to provoke her. And Lara had fallen into the trap.  
  
She had no reason in the world to work with this woman.  
  
Josephine shifted her weight from one leg to another. Once Lara Croft, always Lara Croft. Most likely only interested in what she could benefit from all this.  
  
Garret decided to reply. "It has been known for centuries that a kingdom often addressed as the Kingdom of Kush once existed in Africa. You are aware of the theory, I assume?" he asked Lara.  
  
Lara looked at Josephine. She wished Garret wouldn't have placed it as a question. Of course I know about the kingdom. What am I, a gardener or an archaeologist, for Christsake.  
  
"Yes. It was located in the Sudan, once part of Egypt."  
  
Garret nodded. "Dr. Ross has found evidence that in 1938 an American archaeologist discovered the unrobbed tomb of a pharaoh's grand vizier and his wife. He tried to sneak the treasure out of Africa, but the ship carrying it sunk most likely near Senga Bay, in Lake Malawi."  
  
Lara lowered her eyebrows.  
  
"Lake Malawi? Why on Earth would they sail the artefacts across the Malawi? Assuming they tried to smuggle it, they would have chosen Cape Town or Lagos."  
  
"Josephine?" Garret asked for help.  
  
She flashed a smile which to Lara seemed rather self-conscious. "It would've been too obvious. There were a lot of Brits in Cape Town at that period, and they were keeping track of all possible cargo coming in and out of the city. Seems like Lara has forgotten her 1900's history a bit."  
  
Lara bit her lip. Here we go again.  
  
"If this is such a big discovery, why won't you go get it yourself? What am I needed here for, as I don't obviously even know my history?" Lara asked, slightly annoyed. It seemed that Garret was, indeed, wasting her time.  
  
"I thought you'd like a nice little trip to Africa," Josephine said, a little too innocently to disarm Lara's suspicions.  
  
"Seriously? I didn't assume you ever think," Lara snapped, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. Bickering like children. Get a grip, Croft.  
  
Garret eyed her, not quite knowing what to say. There was obviously little chance of a successful journey. Unless Lara's mood suddenly changed into something willing to accept the challenge of working with Dr. Ross.  
  
"Dr.Ross can't obviously spread the news around, as it would only end in a world-wide treasure hunt. She has found an independent funder who has a condition to his financial aid, isn't that right?" Garret asked politely.  
  
Josephine nodded. Must this man always get a confirmation to everything he says? she wondered to herself. Josephine didn't like uncertain people. She had always imagined Lara to share the opinion but Lara did seem to genuinely like him.  
  
"For some reason, he, meaning the funder, has promised to take care of all possible costs, but with the condition that we work together. I have no idea of his motives, but this is the deal." What am I doing here? She won't take the job, Josephine mused to herself.  
  
"Or, it might be that you're just dying to find out what I do and how. Let me tell you, that was an intriguing story, but I have no desire to work with amateurs," Lara said in a bittersweetly overpolite tone.  
  
Garret laughed. "Lara, your modesty is breathtaking."  
  
Josephine's mouth had turned to an indifferent, half-angry line. Why does * she* always think she's the only one whose time is being wasted?  
  
"I came here to offer you a fair half of a major scientific discovery. If you're not interested, then we come to a tie. No working with me, no treasure for either of us. I thought that grave robbing was your thing, no matter what the target."  
  
"I know you've always thought of me very highly. So please cut the crap."  
  
"I might think that you're a hell of a luck bag and only a shadow of an archaeologist, but I need this discovery. So does this museum. I'm not in obligation to say please, but I just would."  
  
God bless the yanks. Soon she's going to tell me she loves me like a sister, Lara sighed to herself. Begging never worked on her, but she didn't have any jobs underway and frankly, she hated the thought of spending the whole January mooning around at home.  
  
"And where had you thought we should start, Dr. Ross?" 


	2. 2 Socializing

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 2  
  
An hour later the two women left Garret with his paperwork and walked out of the museum. Lara had parked her car in a visitor spot, and she kindly carried Josephine's bag. It was noticeably lighter than her travelling bags. A probable reason was the lack of weaponry in Dr. Ross' bags.  
  
"Have you had any breakfast?" Lara asked, dropping the bags to the trunk.  
  
Josephine shaded her forehead with her hand as the sun was shining heavily, and checked her watch.  
  
"Actually, I haven't. I can't stand aeroplane food, you know the kind of omelette they always have for breakfast. Makes me sick. I worked in a hospital during uni as a volunteer and that stuff smells exactly like the nutritional liquids given to anorectics."  
  
Lara banged the truck closed, and looked tightly at Josephine, swaying her car keys between two fingers.  
  
"Let's make a deal. I am not interested in your life, nor can my personal matters be of interest to you. I'd have it that we cut the crap, found the trinkets, and then part our ways." She hated to admit Josephine's constant chatting made her nervous. Must be a Yankee national quality.  
  
"Lara," Josephine began. Lara hated the way she phrased her first name. A yank all the same. "Let me be frank with you. This is going to be a horrible assignment for both of us if we don't get at least some kind of a peace between us. We're working together, so let's behave, huh?"  
  
Lara replied by entering her car and opening the door for Josephine. Don't you go maternal on me.  
  
"You know Lara, two uppity bitches in one boat is going to rock it around very fast."  
  
Lara stared at her, smiled mildly, and started the car. "I suggest we drive over to Surrey and get something to eat. I'm assuming you're as tired as I always am after a flight."  
  
Josephine nodded. "Surrey; your home, isn' it? More like a castle than a normal house, I've heard. Our flight's tomorrow. I took the liberty of reserving two tickets. If you could point me to a bearable hotel around your home I'd be grateful."  
  
"No more talk of hotels," Lara said sociably enough to startle herself, "You are staying as my guest." She was not very fond of the idea of a work partner, but it would provide some fresh change. However, she was not yet ready to drop her prejudices about Josephine Ross. "I take it you've done all the preparations and arrangements already? With the diving equipment and everything?"  
  
"My tanks and the rest are waiting at the airport. I've also arranged us a hotel in Senga Bay."  
  
"So I'm here just to enjoy the thrill?" Lara joked.  
  
The two-hour drive in dense traffic went by quickly. Josephine had happily agreed to fill Lara in on the recent news in American archaeology, and Lara had to admit she was a good storyteller. Josephine had earned herself the position of the so-called dig director in Chicago university, over a hundred people working for her, the number naturally depending on the time of the year.  
  
Lara worked hard to get used to Josephine's way of conversation - she knew it was in the American disposition, but she couldn't quite get used to her openness about her personal life. Lara always kept stricktly to business.  
  
Josephine's constant talking disappeared as Lara drove in the gates of the manor.  
  
"You actually live here?" Josephine asked, her expression everything but joking.  
  
Lara nodded, parking the car near the front door. Josephine got out, pulling her gloves on in the freezing wind. Then she followed Lara to the door. Lara pressed a button, and soon Josephine heard someone answer in an internal phone.  
  
"Yes?" the system rattled.  
  
"Winston, it's me."  
  
"A moment, if you please," the speaker rattled, and after thirty seconds the door was opened by an elderly man in a butler's uniform.  
  
"Winston," Lara greeted, smiling. Josephine snuck in behind her. The man shook her hand warmly, then shot a questioning glance at Lara.  
  
"Winston, this is Dr. Josephine Ross. She will be staying with us tonight. We are leaving for Africa tomorrow."  
  
"You are as swift in your decisions as always, Miss Croft. Welcome, Dr. Ross," Winston said politely, then turned to Lara. "Shall I do the usual preparations for our visitor, Miss Croft?"  
  
Lara nodded and Winston scuttled away.  
  
Josephine seemed taken by his appearance. "'Miss Croft'? Snobbish, are we Lara?"  
  
Lara grimaced secretly. "He's a family friend. He took care of me when I was young."  
  
"A young maid sailing towards a planned marriage?"  
  
Lara stared at Josephine, negatively suprised. "Perhaps. What brought that to your mind?" She seems to know more about me than I do of her.  
  
Josephine eyed her a bit sadly as she followed Lara upstairs. "Rumors fly, honey. Born to aristocracy, survivor of a plane crash. A class A thief and gifted archaeologist. Now that's a combination that would make the Spice Girls terrified."  
  
"What do you mean, thief?"  
  
"Let's just say I have my sources." Josephine said mysteriously.  
  
"Sources?" Lara turned to face her.  
  
"A certain Jeffrey Gordon is married to my cousin, and boy, the guy's got a loose tongue after a couple of margaritas."  
  
"I don't know anyone by the name of Jeffrey Gordon," Lara dismissed, entering an empty bedroom in the east side of the main staircase. She slid Josephine's bags under the bed. "There you go."  
  
"Thanks. I'll just say that you might know him by the name Zip G. He told me you had some really funny business a couple of years back. You know, he's never forgotten about that legendary black leather suit of yours. You just can't wear jeans and a T-shirt, can you?"  
  
Lara stoppped, gritting her teeth. "The less attention, the better. Black's a good colour, considering.Whatever you might have heard about me from that drunken slob, it's a lie. I'd choose my sources better if I were you."  
  
"My apologies, Miss Croft. I guess all this luxury messed my head", Josephine sighed, grimacing at the sight of a chandelier hanging in the bedroom ceiling.  
  
Soon afterwards Lara disappeared somewhere, leaving Josephine to unpack the things she would need for the night. She cross-checked her passport, their visas, and plane tickets. Luckily they weren't about to visit a malaria- active area.  
  
It had began to snow outside. Shivering at the thought of the cold wind she had experienced walking from the car to the house, Josephine closed the heavy drapes. I just can't understand why someone would want to live in such a cold country. She pulled on a sweater and went to look for Lara.  
  
She liked the mansion. It was like walking in the sets of a Jane Austen movie. She wandered down the staircase to get a good look of the main hall. From the dining room she took a left turn and found herself in a large kitchen.  
  
"Hungry, are you, Miss Ross?" Winston surprised her.  
  
"I could guzzle a train, thank you," Josephine replied, smiling. Winston offered her a spoonful of soup to taste.  
  
"Excellent," Josephine replied, licking her lips. "Might you have any idea where Lara is?"  
  
Winston opened a nearby cupboard and took out some plates. "Miss Croft often spends time in the library. Perhaps you would like to look for her there. If you come across each other, would you be so kind as to inform her that dinner is served?"  
  
"Absolutely." Josephine left the kitchen, grabbing an apple from a tray on her way out. She walked a few steps, then returned to the kitchen. Se coughed slightly to alert Winston.  
  
"Yes, Miss?"  
  
"I.. Uhm... I was wondering where I could find the library?"  
  
Winston smiled. "You could ask Miss Croft to give you a tour around the house later. In the meanwhile, go upstairs, and to the right, then take the second door, then up another low staircase."  
  
"Thanks," Josephine cheered, wondering if Lara's athletic appearance was in any way a result of this constant running up and down stairs.  
  
She did find Lara in the library. She was sitting on the floor, books and magazines spread on the carpet around her. She was concentrating hard, tapping the tip of a fountain pen on her lip.  
  
"Heavy reading?" Josephine asked.  
  
Lara raised her head from the book. "You could say."  
  
"Your butler has dinner ready."  
  
Lara checked her watch. "Dear me, I didn't notice the time. Is dinner ready, I mean, already served? I was planning on taking a run before eating."  
  
"It's freezing outside. You aren't serious?!"  
  
Lara stood up, and stretched by bending her shoulder blades back. "Afraid of frost bites?" she smirked.  
  
"Let's just say I'm glad we're going to Africa. I hate it when it gets this cold in Chicago."  
  
Lara stood up, and stretched by touching her toes legs straight.  
  
"Let's go and eat. I'll use the gym later. You could take a swim later if you like. The pool's downstairs."  
  
"What else you got? A roller coaster? A swim sounds great. But don't we have to pack?"  
  
"I assume you're already packed. I don't need a lot of things, really. I'll do my packing later, maybe in the morning. Trust me, I'll be ready early enough."  
  
Why won't these things ever stay in order? Lara fretted as she found yet another Silvertip in her Black Talon bullet case. Hearing the clattering of teacups outside her room, she yelled "Winston, have you seen my other set of holsters floating around? This closet's a mess."  
  
Josephine peeked in. "I was on my way down with the cups. What on Earth are you hollering?"  
  
Josephine stopped at the sight that greeted her from Lara's bedroom. The large bed was invisible under a heavy load of weaponry and ammunition. Lara wasn't sure if she enjoyed her reaction. Whatever Josephine thought of her was more or less due to Zip's talk and the occasional brattle between the two of them. Lara was aware of the size of her assembly of weapons, and feared that Josephine would start picking on her in her most annoying of ways. She did it in a way that the subject of such talk never could be sure whether she was serious or not.  
  
Lara grimaced to Josephine over her shoulder and outstretched an arm towards Josephine. "Could you please pass me that bag over there?"  
  
Josephine passed her a sports bag with something clattering inside.  
  
"Come on in," Lara said, as she unloaded a magnum clip and filled it.  
  
"I didn't know we were planning on taking over some smaller country." Josephine commented, sitting down on the bed next to a shotgun.  
  
"We're not. I just thought I'd give some of these a good clean-up before we leave. I'm not bringing everything," Lara said, as if she didn't get the joke. She put aside a crossbow and a pair of silver-colored pistols. "You never know what snakes slither under your blankets."  
  
"Ever heard of shooting fish in a barrel?" Josephine asked suddenly.  
  
"What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"Nothing, really," Josephine replied. Lara shook her head and oiled the trigger mechanism of yet another pistol. She yawned and looked around in time to see that Josephine was about to pick up a bullet from a case on the bed.  
  
"Don't!" she yelled, startling Josephine.  
  
"Why?" she asked, a bit offended. She sure is tight on her toys.  
  
"You'll cut yourself. They're chemically sharpened, and filled with metal shards. I cut myself everytime I try to load a clip of those without gloves."  
  
"What are those, anyway?" Josephine asked.  
  
"Black Talons. Manufactured on order. Excellent on moving targets and bigger prey." Lara let a mysterious smile cross her face.  
  
"So I take it you come across a lot of those?" Josephine asked, using the corner of a pillow to grab and inspect one of the bullets.  
  
"Excuse me?" Lara stopped her scrubbing.  
  
"Moving targets and big prey?"  
  
"Sometimes." And the occasional dumb blondes, she added to herself, Lara thought to herself, remembering Jacqueline Natla with her wings. She wondered what Josephine would have had to say about those. Another oversweetly sharp remark?  
  
"I can't imagine how you get any of these through customs." Josephine began a conversation, inspecting the hook of a grappling gun. Jeffrey had one, hanging on the wall next to a polaroid of Lara. Maybe she'd given it to him for some reason.  
  
"I have all the required permits." Lara wasn't too keen on being the subject of such interviewing.  
  
"I didn't know one could get permits for stuff like this." Josephine said, trying how sharp the hook was. It split the skin of her fingertip. Quickly, she sunk her finger in her mouth.  
  
She noticed Lara looking at her, amused. "Remind me never to allow you to carry a diving knife when we get to Malawi. We'll both end up at a witchdoctor's."  
  
"Seriously, Lara. Why do you need all this? Unless it's a twisted hobby."  
  
Ignoring Josephine and marveling at the absence of her usually flamboyant temper that loved dismissing suggestions like the latter, Lara explained; "I try stuff out for firms. You wouldn't believe the things I've come across. Sometimes a mere bitter tongue just doesn't work."  
  
"Like raptors? Jeffrey claimed you've seen those. Have you heard that they don't actually exist?"  
  
You wish. "There are, of course, also the robbers and the occasional money- greedy morons who consider your prize theirs. Have you practiced kung-fu?"  
  
"Karate."  
  
"Then you probably know that no maegeri will save you from a bullet."  
  
Josephine nodded.  
  
"I'll share with you a secret about guns. In a gunfight, if you want to win you have to shoot first."  
  
"And that rule also counts in a situation when the other person is completely unaware of your presence?"  
  
"Always," Lara smiled strangely, making Josephine laugh.  
  
"See you in the morning, Shotgun Spice," Josephine smirked, and left the room.  
  
"Wait-" Lara shouted after her and Josephine returned, her face a questionmark. Lara stood up.  
  
"What about diving gear? I assume that the ship is on the bottom of the lake?"  
  
"I've taken care of everything," Josephine replied in a tone that in Lara's ears sounded a little too self-satisfied. Everytime she had let someone else prepare a trip it had ended in disaster. Still, she knew Josephine was trustworthy in the matter - poorly prepared things would be harmful to both of them.  
  
"So I just need to pack my diving gear?"  
  
"Pack your gear, your knife, and an underwater light if you have one."  
  
"I still wonder why this archaeologist you've mentioned decided to take the scenic route across Malawi with that treasure of his. Moreover, why are we in such a hurry?"  
  
"Our funder is willing to pay all expenses within a month. That's why we're in such a hurry."  
  
Scratching the side of her nose and not entirely sure if Josephine Ross was being completely honest with her, Lara turned her attention back to packing. Josephine left the room. 


	3. 3 The swan and the sparrow

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 3  
  
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Josephine asked, as Lara parked the jeep they had rented in Senga Bay. Lake Malawi shimmered in sunset, and a group of local boys were fishing with primitive-style harpoons in low water. Josephine got out, leaving Lara struggling with the car keys, and walked to the edge of the waves. She sunk her palm in the water and smelled it.  
  
Behind her, Lara leapt over the low jeep door and walked up to Josephine. "Awfully muddy, isn't it?"  
  
Josephine nodded. "We'll be needing the lights. It's lovely to have a walk outside like this after the flight. Too bad Virgin Airlines doesn't fly here. I hate those small planes."  
  
Lara didn't reply. She had never disliked any form of transportation after experimenting with camels in Morocco.  
  
"You know, I've never been to Africa before," Josephine said matter-of- factly.  
  
Lara frowned. "An archaeologist who's never been to Egypt? Surprising. I take it you've been too busy sitting in your little office."  
  
"Unlike you, my dear, most archaeologists are busy sitting in stuffy offices. No, actually, the annual few trips to Mexico, Peru et cetera are enough. I haven't found it necessary to begin any new digs outside South America."  
  
Lara sat down on a rock formation a few metres from the water's edge. "Peru's still as hot during summer as it used to be?"  
  
"All the same. You asked about Egypt. In my opinion it's been thoroughly searched. There's nothing left. All the lovely monuments have disappeared into thin air or the tourists' suitcases." Josephine threw a rock to the still lake. Framed by mountains, it looked isolated and lonely.  
  
"How can you judge if you've never personally been there?" Lara replied a bit angrily.  
  
"Hit a bit of a sore spot, didn't I?" Josephine walked back to the car and waved her hand at Lara, "Let's get going. I promised the hotel owner we'd get our rooms keys before dark."  
  
Taking one last look at the lake, Lara followed her and started the car. "Why don't you indulge me a little more on the background story of the treasure, as you call it. I feel a bit like someone who's been dragged into something."  
  
Josephine smiled. "I don't think you could be classified as a draggable person, really. You came because I made you interested. And that's good."  
  
Lara put her sunglasses on and pressed the gas pedal. Josephine quickly grabbed the shade of her white peaked cap as it was in danger of getting grabbed by the dry wind. Remembering Lara's question, she continued.  
  
"We're looking for the death mask of a tribune of Ramses the Second, and the jewellery of his wife."  
  
"And they were buried in Sudan," Lara confirmed.  
  
"Yep. At Jebel Barkal, the sacred mountain. Under the Egyptian period it used to be a temple of some ancient Egyptian god..."  
  
"-Amun," Lara added loudly over the engine noise.  
  
"I'm impressed. The graves were found in Napata, on the West Bank of the Nile."  
  
"Have you any idea who this mysterious archaeologist who found them was? You never told me what your link was to all this."  
  
"I knew about it because this archaeologist happened to be my grandfather."  
  
"Charles Bronson Ross?" Lara sounded surprised.  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
Lara tapped the steering wheel with her fingers. "He's a legendary guy in egyptology, unless you knew. What reason would he have to smuggle or hide artefacts?"  
  
"You're smart. Act up to it."  
  
Lara thought about it. "He must've found something pretty pricey."  
  
"First prize and full points. That's what I figured, anyway." Josephine stood up in her seat to see more clearly the fields of sunflowers on the side of the dirt road. She marveled at Lara's behaviour - she acted as if driving a jeep through Malawi backcountry was the most natural thing in the world. No culture shock whatsoever.  
  
"You come from a family of archaeologists, then?" Lara asked.  
  
Josephine started to feel light-headed in the heat, so she sat back down. "My grandfather, my father and me. Like you, I assume."  
  
"You couldn't go more wrong. My father's retired from the parliament, and my grandfather - let's just say had money by birth."  
  
"No wonder you had everything so easy, then. Kinda explains a lot."  
  
"I did not get everything easy. I can't believe this," Lara spat out, and pressed gas. "All this time you've loathed me for my alleged success and you never even bothered to check the facts."  
  
"You got everything easy. At least admit it. I'm not going to fight with you over this, but need I remind you that you were even allowed to do your thesis in advance in contrast to us mere mortals?"  
  
"Why should I even try to explain? You've obviously made up your mind in I being a rich bitch, so why should I insult you by proving it wrong?"  
  
"You are as prejudiced as me, if you haven't noticed."  
  
Lara didn't reply. She decided an African evening like the ongoing was far too stunning to spoil with ridiculous arguments.  
  
Hours later, the sun had set, inspiring legions of animals to come out and begin hunting. Stray dogs clattered litter bins behind Lara's room window. The tiny city of Monkey Bay was waking up. Lara, in the privacy of her own room, changed into her jogging wear. Peeking out of the window, she saw lights in Josephine's room, and decided it was unnecessary to inform her where she was going. Lara spread a mosquite net over her bed so she could at least try to sleep later, and left her room.  
  
She nearly trampled over Josephine in the corridor. Lara noticed she had changed her knee-lenght leggings and a T-shirt to a linnen skirt with a matching white blouse. Her sandals looked muddy, even though Lara had not seen her wear them before. It was as she was already coming back from somewhere.  
  
"Going running?" Josephine asked.  
  
"That's quite well phrased." Care to join me? Lara almost asked, but changed her mind.  
  
"You'll have to drop that idea. I'm going out and so are you."  
  
Lara grew suspicious. "Going out? You'll have to enjoy your own company. I planned on taking a run and then going to bed."  
  
"You sure? We could get a bottle of wine from the reception and sit on the lakeshore. Or take a round at the local bars. I bet I can drink you under the table."  
  
"Josephine, practically anyone could drink me under the table. I don't respond well to alcohol. A glass of wine is enough every once in a while," Lara explained more apologetically than intended. There was no way she would agree to try to outdrink anyone.  
  
"Don't be a bore. Go get changed. You have to enjoy yourself for a change, believe me. Do it for minesake, huh? It's no fun celebrating alone."  
  
Lara eyed Josephine sharply. "And what do we have to celebrate? We've just arrived, our work results are an honest zero, and I'm dead tired. You'll have to get Samuel from the reception to accompany you. What we could do, though, is to go through all the material you've got over a cup of coffee."  
  
Josephine gave her a mildly disappointed look. "Shoulda guessed. Going through the papers is okay, but I just felt like..."  
  
"I know what you're talking about. Living rough. I used to do that until I became too old and tired," Lara said bitterly.  
  
"I'll get the papers. But you're going to have to indulge yourself with them - I'm going to bed."  
  
Lara laughed.  
  
"And what might be that funny?" Josephine asked.  
  
"First you're trying to soak me up and when that doesn't work you get grumpy. You're one piece of work, you know Josephine Ross."  
  
"Whereas you're not?"  
  
"I never said that."  
  
Josephine woke up late. Aware that Lara might not appreciate the fact, she dropped herself from her bed - the only way to wake herself up completely in a split second, and dove into her suitcase for a fresh outfit. She picked out a clean version of her previous wear - knee-lenght shorts, bleach-smelling tennis socks and a T-shirt.  
  
She stopped to look herself in the mirror, struggling with the buttons of her shorts. There had never been a need to lose weight - as a child she'd been thin as a rake, and in her youth she'd competed in gymnastics. Adulthood had only brought a few extra pounds - the leftovers of doomed relationships and one marriage. In her opinion she wasn't very beautiful, perhaps only pretty, and whatever the truth might be, she would never be able to compete in looks with the person staying in the room left of hers.  
  
Lara Croft. Josephine had considered earning the job of a dig curator to be an achievement, but to Lara achievements seemed to fall down from the sky. She was a pet child of modern archaeology.  
  
And the men. In university they'd first mooned over Lara, and after learning a few lessons in manners from the person aforementioned, they'd mooned over Josephine.  
  
How nice it was, always being number two in the line, Josephine reminded herself, and finished brushing her hair. She'd learned to keep up her own things. She was a well-known academic and South America specialist, and someone had even called her a great speaker.  
  
Josephine was an ambition-driven person, and she knew that she would, unconsciously dislike every person happening to be more skilled than her in any subject. Lara, though, was one of her favorite subjects to discuss. And the fact that Lara Croft's personal life was a mystery to both the press and her colleagues.  
  
The most annoying thing about Lara was that she seemed like a nice person, in general. Quiet and unsocial maybe, but nice all the same.  
  
Josephine pulled the window close, and grabbed her peaked cap from the chair under the vanity table. She went to knock on Lara's door but got no reply.  
  
In the reception she greeted Sam, a smiling young African and left her room key for safe storage. Then she went out and got attacked by the burning South African sun.  
  
Lara was already outside, packing their jeep with diving equipment. As Josephine closed the hotel - if you could call it such - door, she was struggling to get Josephine's tanks in the open trunk. Sweat gleamed on her forehead.  
  
"You've started off early," Josephine commented, shading her eyes with her palm.  
  
Lara climbed down from the jeep and took off her sunglasses. "I'm starting to think we need a pick-up instead of this old thing."  
  
"As long as we get everything to fit in, we'll be okay. Have you found a boat yet?" Josephine asked helpfully.  
  
Lara nodded, tapping light brown sand off her hiking boots. "Dear old Sam in the reception knows a man who has the biggest fishing boat around the bay. He's willing to help. Why don't we go and get the rest of the stuff?"  
  
Josephine opened the hotel door to Lara and followed her inside.  
  
"I take it you're a good diver, then?" Lara asked. She hadn't asked before because she assumed Josephine would be smart enough to inform her if the situation was that she wasn't a diver at all.  
  
"I have PADI diving teacher's license," Josephine replied, hoping Lara wouldn't ask of her actual experience. She'd dived quite a lot, but Lara's experience would probably beat hers by any number. Besides she had never dived in shipwrecks. Lara probably wouldn't appreciate that bit of information very much.  
  
"More of marine archaeology or puddle archaeology?" Lara teased.  
  
"Mainly holiday diving. Well, the closest I've ever come to marine archaeology was when I was the only one willing to dive into a sacrificial well in La Venta last year."  
  
"Nasty, aren't they?" Lara asked. They had arrived in Josephine's room, and Josephine dug out her swimming suit from the cupboard. Lara disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a sports bag.  
  
"So you've come across those, then?" Josephine asked, interested. After all, Central and South America was her field.  
  
"Excuse me?" Lara asked, crossing her arms in the doorway while waiting for Josephine.  
  
"Sacrificial wells? Where?"  
  
Lara thought for a second. "Vilcabamba, around 1996, I think. Plus one in Chiczen Itza."  
  
"Actually, I don't think Vilcabamba wells are sacrificial ones at all. There was vulcanic activity in the area around the time the city was deserted due to the Spaniards, and a flood is supposedly the reason of some rooms and corridors filling with water," Josephine replied enthusiastically and a little proudly. It was her theory that the Incas had never actually sacrificed humans.  
  
"That's new to me. Interesting," Lara replied without a hint of negativity in her tone. She went out, leaving Josephine to look for her left fin. 


	4. 4 Desperate measures

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 4  
  
They had flipped a coin on who got to drive and Josephine had won. Lara enjoyed the scenery, her arm out of the window as they passed fields and houses, along with a shanty town inhabited by the poor. Little black children with supernaturally white teeth waved at them as they drove past. A group of women were carrying water on their heads and singing a happy melody in perfect harmony as they trekked towards the village. This was the real Africa.  
  
The Senga Bay docks consisted of two half-rotten rows of logs, where dozens of boats were roped to. It reminded Josephine of a few Caribbean port of calls she had seen on her holidays with her ex-husband.  
  
Josephine and Lara unpacked their equipment and set to wait. Lara put on a suffered straw hat and lied on the sand, and Josephine took a short stroll on the beach. She wanted to ask Lara when she had arranged to take off from the docks, but she sensed that time was a subjective word in Africa. And she didn't mind waiting on the beach.  
  
A light had been burning in Lara's room late the previous night. At midnight Josephine had stuck her head out of her window to see where the gleam of light was coming from and seen Lara sitting on the window sill, glasses on, reading Josephine's notes, underlining phrases.  
  
Now Lara had obviously dozed off on the hot sand.  
  
After a good half-an-hour of waiting an old fishing boat with a low water line made its way to the more steady-looking jetty. It was steered by an old man, dark as coal who waved her hand at Josephine. She took off her hat and walked to the end of the jetty to grab the towrope. The old man jumped on the dock suprisingly lithely. He came to shake Josephine's hand and smiled widely. "Atan," he introduced.  
  
"Josephine Ross," Josephine said, and turned to take a look at Lara, who had woken up and was now carrying their bags toward the dock.  
  
"Josefin Rooz," Atan repeated. "Wellcome to my boat." His English was strongly accented, and obviously not very good.  
  
Lara walked up to them and dropped the bags on the jetty. She offered her hand. "Lara Croft. I believe I spoke with your friend Sam yesterday?"  
  
Atan nodded and shook Lara's hand. He then smiled at both women and made an inviting gesture towards the boat deck. Josephine climbed on the deck and moved to the open water side of the boat to admire the scenery as Lara and Atan carried the rest of their equipment to the dock. Atan then started loosening the ropes, and Lara hauled two tanks down on board.  
  
"I'd so love some help in here," she hinted to Josephine, and together they managed to get the rest of their diving gear on the wooden deck without dropping them.  
  
Atan steered them off the docks and towards the open lake. The sandy beach became a mass of brown as the mountains in the far horizon on the opposite banks of the mountain-framed Lake Malawi became more distinct.  
  
"Is there any place we could change in?" Josephine whispered to Lara after she had told Atan they were at the spot, near an underwater arch of rock, obviously treacherous to anyone who didn't live and fish around Senga Bay.  
  
"In the hold, I believe." Lara leaned on the side railing of the boat to gaze down to the muddy water. Maybe the water would be clearer in the bottom. The only underwater map she had managed to find from the Internet at home in Surrey read that the depth was around forty feet where they were parked. Underneath the boat, an archway of rock was visible. It looked uninviting.  
  
Lara walked to the stern and pulled up the fish hold trapdoor. Atan tied the helm to the port railing and sat down on the deck with a sandwich.  
  
Lara lowered herself down to the hold. It smelled heavily of fish, both ripe and rotten. It would have to do as a dressing room, as the small boat had no cabins.  
  
Soon Josephine peered over the trapdoor edges and brought their bags. She jumped down, crashing on an old cardboard box as her grip on the trapdoor slipped.  
  
"Are you alright?" Lara asked.  
  
"Just swell. Let's get this show on the road." Josephine passed Lara her bag and then banged the trapdoor shut. Total darkness overcame the hold.  
  
"Now that was a great idea," Lara taunted. "I can't see my own hands. Open the hatch."  
  
"You don't suppose Atan will sneak up on us?" Josephine asked.  
  
"And that would make the world lose its balance? He won't."  
  
Nevertheless, Lara pushed open the hatch, and they changed quickly. Josephine felt a little out-of-place in her yellow swimming suit next to Lara's short-legged wet suit, but it would have to do. She had decided against her wetsuit as the water was warm and not very deep.  
  
She was ready more quickly than Lara, who had to struggle with the stunt of the zipper in her back. Lara also carefully strapped a rough-blade diving knife to her calf. They climbed back up on the deck and declined Atan's offer of fly-covered sandwiches. They strapped onto their tanks and regulators, and Lara gave Josephine a 'go'-sign. She took one look at the muddy water, sat down on the railing, and let herself fall down back first. Lara followed, jumping feet first from the edge of the deck.  
  
Josephine felt the ever-so-familiar slight panic of diving into an unknown place, and she felt a bit relieved as the bubbles that her dive had created surfaced, and she could see more clearly. Lara was to her left, head still on the surface, adjusting her goggles. In a minute Lara's head dived below surface, and they gave each other a 'down' -sign. Josephine set to follow Lara, who seemed to have a much better underwater light than she did.  
  
They swam below a rock arch housing a family of blue fish, a very distinctive and helpful feature as they would sooner or later have to find the boat again.After a good five metres they slowed down and blew air from their noses to adjust the pressure in their ears. Lara's break was a bit longer as she had to get some water out of her mask as well.  
  
There was less and less light as they dived deeper. Lara led the way, kicking steadily and quickly and Josephine had to admit her leg muscles weren't much competition to Lara's. Lara stopped every minute to check that Josephine was still there but it was only a nod of the head - it didn't seem that Lara was even looking behind her. A few pike-looking fishes swam past them and Josephine saw Lara touching a passing one's side.  
  
Water was clearer deep down. After what Josephine's console called thirteen metres they saw a bottom. It was grey and dull-looking with almost no vegetation. Lara had told her Lake Malawi was a part of a long graben that went throughout Africa. It was old and deep at most parts, the part they were diving above was one of the highest points in the whole lake.. The rocky bottom housed crabs and colourful fish, but nothing else.  
  
The ship should've been right under the arch. It wasn't - which was no news to Josephine.  
  
But that wasn't a piece of information one could easily share with Lara Croft.  
  
They had found nothing. No skeletons, no ship, no hull pieces. Only a pair of barracudas in the dark water. Lara had been visibly disappointed, as she agreed with Josephine of the fact that a note made my Josephine's father had clearly indicated the place. The Sudanese tomb wasn't mentioned on the scrap of paper, but it was close enough to some notes of it in a file held together by two thin leather straps.  
  
Or had it?  
  
Their boat had returned to the pier late in the afternoon. Atan hadn't accepted any money as a payment for the boat hire - he wanted a drink. Lara agreed before Josephine could have a say - not that she minded, but it was always nice to be considered the other person in charge - which she was.  
  
They had settled into the crummiest of bars which was, unfortunately for the customers and fortunately for the owner - the only bar in town. The bartender was a young, white South African man named Chris. Josephine had shared a few smiles with him over the counter, just for the fun of it. Atan had gotten his drink, eight in fact, and left tipsy but happy at eight o'clock. Lara stood up an hour later after gulping down a glass of white wine, ready to leave.  
  
"Josephine, are you still going to have a glass or two?"  
  
Josephine glared to the bottom of her whisky soda. Her second. "Probably," she said.  
  
The voice of Elvis rattled across the foyer from the radio. Lara put her glass on the counter. "I've got the mother of all headaches. I'm sorry for leaving you all alone here, but I think I'll be able to think more clearly after a few hours of sleep."  
  
Josephine nodded. She didn't mind. After Lara had left she abandoned her chair at a table and landed on a chair next to the counter.  
  
"Hey Chrissy, if you get me another one I'll give you an extra tip."  
  
"Yes, Ma'am," Chris replied and reached under the counter for a bottle of scotch. "Long day?"  
  
"Do they pay you for asking or are you actually interested?" Josephine blurted.  
  
"I'm sorry if you took it that way."  
  
Josephine noticed he spoke excellent English. "Are you really from around here?"  
  
Chris scratched off smut from a wine glass and shook his head. "No. I'm from Johannesburg, but I studied law in Los Angeles."  
  
"My mother's from around there," Josephine replied bluntly, wondering what a person with a law degree was going in a hellhole like Monkey Bay. At least it was a hellhole with beautiful nature.  
  
Chris looked at her, apologetically. "We seem to have run out of soda. Can I get you something else?"  
  
"A double scotch on the rocks and I'll be your friend always." Josephine flashed a friendly smile.  
  
"Certainly. So, I assume you're one of the two ladies that made Atan's day."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"He hasn't had a drink in weeks, the old smuggler. So, what's your interest in our little town?"  
  
"I'm a tomb raider, you know," Josephine laughed. "The academical sort, though. My gun-toting, action-packed better half went to bed already."  
  
Chris eyed her curiously. "She's Lara Croft, isn't she?"  
  
Josephine snorted. "Darn if everyone doesn't know her." Josephine received her glass from Chris, suddenly lost her desire to mingle, and sat down to a side table.  
  
She was tired of keeping up appearances. She had travelled there to prove a point to both herself anf the uppity bitch she had assumed Lara to be. She had been mistaken. Lara was a bit alike her, really. She only had better luck and no argument or discovery would change that. As a young student she'd dreamt of actually embarrassing Lara in front of the world, by finding out her dirty secrets or just plain embarrassing her. That dream had moved aside from more professional and grown-up desires of snapping Lara's nose just a little.  
  
Josephine sipped her whisky. I'm going to get pissed, she thought. Who cares?  
  
At one o'clock in the morning Josephine had to raise the reed mat on her room floor to see if she'd paced a canyon on the floor. She'd been walking around her room for three hours, waiting. At midnight Lara had flicked off her bedside lamp and after that there was no more sound from her room. Josephine had once snuck out of her window to the alley and looked in Lara's window. She slept with a pistol in her hand. Not stopping to wonder if the safety clip was still on, Josephine abandoned the idea of sneaking into Lara's room. She would only get herself pierced by bullets.  
  
It was her discovery, and despite all her mistakes she had earned it. Earned it by working hard when others were rewarded for doing nothing but being adventurous and pretty. She hadn't cheated to get on top of things.  
  
Josephine had became interested in history in her early teens and she realized at an early stage that all the famous people in history - they all had in common not skill and hard work but good luck. Since then she'd been intrigued by the nature of such luck. Now she had a live specimen of such fate, and she didn't feel interested anymore.  
  
Because besides lucky people, famous figures of history had become famous by cheating, lying, murdering or deceiving.  
  
And according to Josephine's brother-in-law Zippy G, Lara had gotten away with a lot of those. So, Josephine muttered to herself, what's preventing me from experimenting with such luck?  
  
She had made up a plan. It wasn't anything fancy - dear old James Bond would've been ashamed, but it was good enough for her. One leg of her chair was loose and Josephine pulled it off, weighing it in her determined, but ever so slightly trembling hands. She opened her window wide and stuffed a few pillows underneath her bed covers. Then she slipped into the shadows behind the bathroom door. Near her was a metallic trash bin that hadn't been emptied for ages. Standing firmly, Josephine checked her watch. It read 01:32.  
  
Then it began.  
  
Josephine hit the trash bin with the chair leg as hard as she could, just once. In an amazing ten seconds she heard someone walking in the alley. Then the mouth of a silver-colored pistol appeared in the window. After that, Lara peeked in. "Josephine?" she asked.  
  
Josephine clattered the trash bin a bit. Lara leapt in from the window, and landed on Josephine's bed. "Oh God, I'm sorry," Lara muttered, and quickly jumped down, placed her back against the wall, and patted the spot under the blankets where Josephine's shoulder was supposed to be. Naturally, Lara seemed a bit confused, as her landing on top of her hadn't woken her up. Josephine saw Lara bit her lip in the faint light coming from the alley. Then Lara turned to look at the bed and raised the blankets, staring at the pillows used in giving the impression of someone sleeping in the bed.  
  
Then Josephine leapt from behind the door, and hit Lara in the head with all her might with the unfortunate chair leg. Lara managed to turn before the impact to face Josephine's horrified eyes, and for a split second Josephine was sure she would be done for. But then Lara fell. Josephine rushed to her side to avoid Lara's head colliding with the sharp edge of the dressing table, but she came a moment too late. Blood trickled down Lara's face as she fell down next to Josephine. The pistol had clattered away under the bed.  
  
Gasping from the rush of adrenaline and scared to death, Josephine ran to flick on the lights.  
  
She'd just knocked out Lara Croft, who lay next to her bed with a bloody face in a dark blue T-shirt and leggings, barefoot.  
  
Josephine walked to the bathroom, kept a towel under running, cold water, and used it to wipe blood off Lara's nose.  
  
She looked a bit pitiful, lying in there. It wasn't what Josephine had meant, but anyway. Straining her arm muscles she managed to pull Lara into her own bed and cover her with a blanket. Then she quickly dressed, snuck into Lara's room to get the jeep keys, grabbed her ready-packed bag and began the seven-hour drive to the nearest airfield to get a ticket to Namibia on the first possible flight. 


	5. 5 Solitude

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 5  
  
It was Sunday morning. Dry gusts of wind flapped the curtains and a lonely bird sang out in the what could have been an African version of a ghost town. Everybody was at church.  
  
In a lonely hotel in the side of a dirt road, Lara Croft lifted her head from the pillow, certain that she had the hangover of the century if taking in consideration the intensity of her headache. Even though she had only had one drink. Aware that something in the puzzle wasn't right, she reached for the glass of water she had placed on her bedside table the evening before.  
  
It wasn't there. Lara sat up and jiggled her sore feet under the blanket. After close consideration of her surroundings she noted she wasn't even in her own room. Lara got out of bed, and noticed a pile of clothes on the floor that, according to Lara's recollections, belonged to Josephine Ross. Lara lifted the white T-shirt from the floor. Positive identification - Josephine. Lara walked to the bathroom, trying to get hold of the big picture. The vision in the bathroom mirror did clear out some things, the least.  
  
Lara's hand flew up to her head as she saw the bump on her forehead, with a thin trail of dried blood decorating her cheek. What do we have here? I've been whacked on the head by a someone. Lara washed her face with a piece of toilet tissue and dropped it to the trash bin next to the bathroom door. A towel was already there - with blood in it. Why would someone knock her unconscious and then decide to clean up the mess a bit? Unless that someone was not very experienced in whacking people in the head. Counting up with the fact that she'd heard something from Josephine's room the night before and probably went to see whatever it was, the answer seemed clear.  
  
I've been hit in the head by a certain someone. Lara figured her pistol must've been in the room somewhere - Josephine, in her opinion, wouldn't be intelligent enough to take it.  
  
It was under the bed. Stuffing the pistol mouth into her bra, it being the only possible place as she didn't sleep with her holsters as some might think, Lara dashed to the hotel lobby and out of the door - to see the jeep gone as she had predicted.  
  
First anger was a little animal, biting her insides, then it grew into a tiger.  
  
So this was what one got from helping out an old friend... fiend. The last time I ever do a good deed in my life, Lara half-heartedly decided as she walked across the lobby, still barefoot, evoking a surprised look from Sam at the reception. Then Lara thought again, and returned to the reception. Flashing her best angry smile she asked Sam if he could borrow his phone for a minute. Sam pulled an old, roll-the-numbers phone from under the counter and told Lara to make as many calls as she needed.  
  
First she called the car rental agency. The jeep had not been returned. Then Lara asked Sam for the local airfield number and Sam scuttled away to find it. He came back with a scribbling on a paper. Lara dialled the number and waited.  
  
"Yez this is Kinsang Airport reception how can I help you?" a woman replied at the other end.  
  
"This is Lara Croft. I need information on a foreign traveller. Her name is Josephine Ross, and she has bought a ticket either this morning or last night," Lara explained politely, gritting her teeth, cross at herself for letting things end up as they had.  
  
"A moment, please." the woman replied and Lara heard her tapping the keyboard. "We have the name Josephine Ross both in a car park file and in a reservation. First I need to ask what your use for this information would be."  
  
I've got plenty of use for it, thank you. "I'm travelling with her and I think she might be in danger." At least when I get to her.  
  
The woman seemed to buy her explanation. "Very well. She has a car parked at square forty eight. And she bought a ticket to the 09:15 Air Senegal flight to Mowe Bay Airfield."  
  
"Where's that at?" Lara asked.  
  
"Coast of Namibia."  
  
"Are their any departures today for Mowe Bay?" Lara asked quickly.  
  
A pause at the other end. "No, I'm sorry, the next one is tomorrow. It's an Air Namib flight."  
  
"What about somewhere nearby? On the coast? I can tell you the cost is not a problem."  
  
"There is one private jet flying to Opuwo at noon where there are quite many connecting flights to different parts of Namibia. I could try and get to speak to the captain. He often accepts foreigners as passengers. Shall I call you back?"  
  
Lara checked her watch. Ten thirty. "Don't bother. I'm coming over anyway."  
  
Six hours later the little jet touched ground in Opuwo. Lara gulped the last of her tea, and thanked the steward. She climbed out after other passengers, and recovered her baggage and diving equipment that had been far too expensive to leave in Senga Bay. She'd made a compromise and packed everything.  
  
There was no terminal, just a small airfield and an office building. Lara strapped her tanks and the rest of her diving equipment - which Josephine had short-sightedly left lying on the back of their rental jeep in Malawi - on her back and carried her bags, legs nearly giving out under the heavy weight. She made her way to the office and left the gear outside. An Asian man roughly the age of thirty was sitting behind the only counter, typing in to what looked like one of the earliest models of computer ever manufactured. He raised his head as he heard the outdoor clatter.  
  
"Welcome to Opuwo!" he hollered cheerfully. He didn't seem to have any trouble dealing with customers wearing a full scuba diving gear. "How can I be of help, Madam?"  
  
"Thank you. I need a car, and a good map of the coast and the desert from here to the border."  
  
"You are a tourist, yes?"  
  
"Not exactly. I'm here on business," Lara replied, thanking the fact that she'd travelled with a private jet and so avoided all security checks. The Namibian authorities wouldn't actually have held a party at the sight of a gun-smuggling foreigner.  
  
"There is a car rental shop half a mile down the road next to the bar. You can get maps from there, I think. If you would like to use the phone, be my guest." The man, whose nametag read Michael Yan, pointed at the wall, where a surprisingly modern phone hung.  
  
Lara grabbed the received and then turned to see the man. "If I wanted to... Say, reach someone at Mowe Bay, whom should I call?"  
  
Michael Yan pondered the question for a second. "I'd call the hotel. Usually there's only one in a small city or village. In Mowe Bay there's only one-"  
  
"You wouldn't happen to have the actual number, would you?" Lara said, certain that he didn't but she tried anyway.  
  
"In fact, I do. This isn't an air traffic office for nothing. Most folks who come here don't stay. And Mowe's a good place to start getting to know the Skeleton Coast."  
  
Michael Yan placed her the call, and Lara found out that Josephine had not stayed at the hotel. That was a start, at the most. Michael was still on the phone when Lara made a sign to listen to her.  
  
"Ask if there's a grocery store of some sorts in the town. If yes, then ask if the owner might've seen any foreigners during the past two days. If they can get hold of him, that is."  
  
Michael Yan looked at her, puzzled. Then he turned his attention back to the receiver and spoke quickly in some local dialect. After a moment he gave Lara a thumbs-up. Then he ended the call.  
  
"The owner happened to be a local drunk, sitting in the hotel bar. Seems you've got luck with you. A brown-haired white woman, as the owner yelled, had bought his store empty and also rented a 'big' boat with storm capability for tomorrow."  
  
Lara smiled graciously. "You didn't by any chance ask where the boat was due?"  
  
Michael nodded, pleased with himself. "Khumib Beach. It's on the map, shouldn't be difficult to find."  
  
Lara was already rushing out of the door.  
  
"You still need someone to guide you, driving through the desert-" Michael yelled after her, but Lara was already out of hearing range.  
  
Hours later, the woodlands surrounding the small airfield were gone. Instead, Lara reined her rental jeep through a much more desolate landscape. The road was wide and sandy. Lara remembered her old hobby of taking note of different colors of sand in different places. In Egypt it was deep, creamy yellow - a rather irritating colour. In Italy the sand was always of peculiar colour - black or multicolored. Australia she'd never visited but had once been given a vial of Australian sand by a friend who was originally from the continent. It was red, probably the deepest red sand could be.  
  
But if those were sand, this was Sand with a capital s. Depressingly brown, it never seemed to end. A few dried bushes and trees the shape of Japanese bonsais decorated the otherwise rough landscape, and the odd phone line pole divided the land into neat squares. Somewhere in the distance, humidity turned the far-off mountains and their surroundings blue.  
  
Lara pressed gas, and enjoyed the speed's cooling effect. Some would say she was driving recklessly. Lara, personally, would have said she was merely taking advantage of an empty road. As one often could in Africa.  
  
She dug out a muesli bar from her shorts pocket and ripped off the other end of the wrapping with her teeth. The small piece of foil then flew off in the wind.  
  
Come and get me, Greenpeace.  
  
Seriously, what was she doing? Chasing someone unintelligent enough to die of colliding with a door? For no reason other than continuing the eternal legacy of good manners? Good manners that did not include whacking working partners in the head.  
  
Or could it be that she was torturing this car for other reasons? Could it be that she wasn't pissed off by just the fact that something had collided with her dear head?  
  
Who wouldn't be pissed of after being assaulted? Saint Margaret, the tops.  
  
The truth, of course, was that Lara was extremely enraged by the fact that she was, again, accused of something that had nothing to do with her - being good at what she did. Being scary - but not scary enough, as people still tended to pull these stunts on her.  
  
The universal truth is that nobody cares about the winners, the people who eventually survive through what they've chosen to do. They don't need friends, people say. They even daresay that they don't even ever need help.  
  
I cope without help only because it hasn't exactly been ever offered, Lara thought and slowed down a bit as she was passing a herd of uninterested- looking caribu deers. So they did really live this close to the coast.  
  
Lara was annoyed with herself by ever having high hopes at even getting along with Josephine Ross. It probably wasn't Josephine's fault. Whose fault are prejudices anyway?  
  
The sun was setting. Lara passed a few dunes, a sign that she was drawing closer to the coastline. Dunes had always had a sad echo in Lara's imagination - they could swallow entire villages and destroy the agriculture on an area entirely.  
  
A few puddles of capillary salt were settled next to a few fallen tree trunks. And sand everywhere. There was a thing about the sand - it was heavy, unlike Saharan sand that tended to stick to the most uncomfortable of places and irritate one for hours. If you took a short camel ride in the desert surrounding the Gizan pyramids - the bonus; deafness as a result of sand piling up in your ears came free of charge.  
  
Between dunes, there were little groups of dark green trees just about to be buried under a wandering dune.  
  
Lara took off her sunglasses as the first stars appeared in the velvet blue night sky. As there was a special characteristic in African sand, there also was one in the sky; the stars really lit the way, unlike in most other corners of the world.  
  
The dunes grew higher, and an elephant made its way down one's slope somewhere far away. Lara was too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice. It was completely dark, and the sounds of nightbirds and cicadas filled the air. Lara finally eased the pressure on the gas pedal. Her stomach didn't seem to be pleased with the muesli bar anymore.  
  
Then she heard it. Crashing of waves, somewhere nearby. The jeep lights started brushing on more small rocks than there had been during the preceding hours. Lara slowed down to make sure she wasn't colliding with any cliffs. Yhe sound of the waves became distinct. She turned off the engine.  
  
She leapt over the jeep door, and after an unsuccessful attempt to hold her balance, landed on her bottom in the moist sand. Need more stretching, I see. At least she had no audience. She got up and walked towards the whishing sound until her hiking boots got wet. She closed her eyes as she smelled salt, and water.  
  
Finding the place had been easy as the general rule of African roads naturally applied to Namibia - there is, generally speaking, only one road to every place.  
  
Then she noticed it. A small fire, a mile away. It was only an orange flicking, but as Lara had yet to come across any rock formations or animals that flicked in the night, it must've been a campfire. Lara walked to the jeep, and recovered her second pistol from the glove compartment. The other one was at its regular home in her hip holster. 


	6. 6 The wrong end of the barrel

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 6  
  
Imagine the world of a snake. You slither peacefully in a little coppice on an ocean shore in the middle of the loveliest African night. Then you come across something strange. A red, plastic thing with a glass and a button on it. You slither over it. Then you discover something much more sinister - a bush of thick, brown strands of something that resembles burnt grass, attached to a larger quantity of flesh and fabric.  
  
That was the fate of a snake that night.  
  
Lara had trekked over to the campsite, and noticed it to be, indeed, a campfire used to dry wet socks. Next to the fire, slept Josephine Ross on a sleeping bag, as the night was hot and she'd have died of dehydration if she had had decided to to take advantage of the luxury of sleeping in the bag.  
  
Lara took a position some five metres away from Josephine and the fire, and waited for an excuse. And it came, in the form of a grass snake slithering across the campsite.  
  
Who said only bad things came out of revenge? To Lara it seemed to offer a quite an explicit pleasure. She fired, and the snake's head became a mesh of skin and teeth.  
  
Josephine had never woken up so quickly. She nearly flew to a sitting position, certain that Death himself had rummaged through her campsite.  
  
Lara waited, aware that her identity was hidden by the shadows.  
  
"Lara?" Josephine asked, and Lara noticed her voice was trembling slightly.  
  
"No, it's the Greenhouse Effect."  
  
Josephine tried to laugh. Without much notable success. "Your head okay?" she asked, and got ready to stand up.  
  
"Funny you should ask. By the way, I'd stay sitting if I were you - we wouldn't want anything knocking you unconscious, would we?" Lara asked in a marmalade-sweet tone. She stepped closer, a pistol still aimed at Josephine.  
  
Josephine looked next to her on the sandy ground and saw the snake. Then she looked at Lara, who had stepped even closer. More accordingly, she looked at the mouth of Lara's Colt.  
  
"Weren't we supposed to be friends, Josephine? I wasn't aware of being your toy, really." Lara's tone was stern, mocking.  
  
Josephine got up, ignoring the pistol. Lara wouldn't shoot. Just yet. "I wasn't aware you ever applied for the job."  
  
Lara clicked her pistol. "You are aware of what the significance of the safety clip in a handgun is, are you not?"  
  
"You're not scaring me."  
  
Lara gave Josephine her best evil grin. "Does this mean you won't be intimidated by my rough, scavengeristic charm?"  
  
"Yeah." Josephine moved her glare from the pistol to Lara.  
  
"Funny - I thought my graverobbing, murdering and betraying side was the only one you thought to exist. Or has your view of me changed?"  
  
Josephine grew tired. "If you really need to know - it had, up until know. You know, I really feel sorry for your boyfriends when you get these rushes of rage. Poor little chaps. Probably rich and good-looking but not very brainy. Or old."  
  
Now that wasn't really called for. "I've had serious relationships with men, you know." Lara hated the fact that she had to defend herself to Josephine.  
  
"I should know," Josephine replied victoriously, "After several of those and one marriage I should know about serious relationships."  
  
Josephine noticed Lara was actually surprised. "You were married? Congratulations. What was the cause of the eventual split? Your chronical bitchyness?"  
  
"No need to go into profanities, Miss Croft. I'm only here to do my job. You seem to be here to kill innocent little animals."  
  
"I'm already on Body Shop's black list, so what's to lose. Anyway, what have you found so far? Sand? Splendid. Mud? Astonishing. Water? You are a true archaeologist. Tell me now, Josephine - did you plan all this? You knew from the moment I walked to Garret's office that Malawi would be a wild goose chase?"  
  
"Maybe, " Josephine replied defiantly. She hadn't. She had partially hoped it wouldn't have been, but things always played Lara's way, it seemed.  
  
"I see. You're even better of a fraud than me. Feel free to get back to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us."  
  
"What?" Josephine's face was a questionmark.  
  
"You, my dear, are going to show me the exact location of this ship you've been ranting about. Surely we have to give Garret his little prize for letting me off the leash, don't you agree?"  
  
Josephine returned to her sleeping bag. "You only get half of what we find. And what will you be doing in the meanwhile?"  
  
"Enjoying the lovely night and making sure nothing gets in or out of this campsite. Now, might there be a sandwich in your bag?"  
  
Josephine awoke groggily the next morning. Miraculously, she had slept well. Seems as she had been telling the truth to Lara when saying she wasn't afraid of her. Or maybe it was the good ole "you can't kill me because I'm too useful" -cliche so often present in the action movies she'd seen.  
  
She smelled smoke, and stood up, partly alarmed. Lara was sitting a few feet away from her, tending a pot boiling above a small campfire. Lara raised her head as she heard Josephine splatting sand off her shirt. Damned desert winds.  
  
"Slept well, have we, Josephine?" Lara asked with a surprisingly neautral tone. She probably thinks I'm at her mercy here, Josephine thought bitterly and ignored her.  
  
Josephine stirred in the sunlight, and gazed out to the sea. A pair of sea lions were exposing their bellies to the warm sunlight nearby, and the ocean winds whisked the coast. A vibrantly red-rusted wreck in low water shimmered in the light. The whole beach had a beautiful, yet dramatic aura.  
  
"Breakfast, Josephine?"  
  
Josephine turned, walked next to Lara and sat down in the sand. "It beats me why you always use my name when you have something to say in spite of the obvious fact that there isn't a soul nearby."  
  
Lara passed her a steaming cup of... something. Josephine stared into the cup.  
  
"Tomato soup. I added some beans. I've just been wondering how you got such a name. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with your first name."  
  
"Even though it's not us catchy as Lara Croft. Lara. Croft. Lara what Croft?"  
  
"Angeline. Kinda takes the edge off it, doesn't it?" Lara remarked, and took a sip from her mug.  
  
Josephine dug out a peaked cap from her pocket and put it on. It was sandy. "Dad decided to name me and my sister after archaeological stuff. Meant a lot to him."  
  
"Josephine was Napoleon's wife," Lara said more to herself than Josephine.  
  
"Gee - I always thought I was named after a Tori Amos song," Josephine mocked.  
  
Here we go again with the hostility. Why is it that people don't stick to their real turns of being angry?It definitely isn't hers, Lara thought. She was having a tough time being angry in such an intriguing place. Especially the waterfront wreck made her skin crawl in excitement. Now that would make a challenging diving site. Pity it wasn't the ship they were after. It couldn't be. It would've been emptied long ago."Who's Tori Amos?" she asked.  
  
"Nevermind. So, Dad named me Josephine and my sis Mariette."  
  
"After the monastery in Jordan - St. Mariette? I take it your father had something to do with that?"  
  
"He lead the excavation team," Josephine said, with such a hint of dreamyness in her voice it strenghtened Lara's feeling about Josephine thinking that leading an excavation is the best job one could possible get in archaeology.  
  
"And your mother had no word in naming you two, then?" Lara asked politely.  
  
"She was Joanie Josephine, so I guess she was happy enough because of me being named after her. What about you? Lara's a not a very common name."  
  
"Had my father named me after the things he loved, my first names would probably include Dow and Jones. My mother was an Andrea, Angeline could be a twist of that. I never learnt the history behind "Lara"."  
  
"An illiterate priest?" Josephine joked, and Lara found herself laughing. 'Laura' would never have fitted her. Or so she liked to think. Laura, as a name, had no edge, no wit to it. Not enough for Lara, the least.  
  
Well, time to move onto more serious matters, Lara thought. She cleared her throat. "You're expecting me to ask why, Josephine -" Lara's train of thoughts were taken off the track as she realized she had unintentionally used Josephine's name again. True - it was funny as there was noone nearby. Maybe a sort of habit, or an unconscious attempt to gain control. "You're expecting me to make you compensate for the bump I now have in my head. I won't - until we have something concrete in our hands from this trip. In my order of importance, work comes before personal vendetta. So concentrate on the job at hand, and you won't have to fear my revenge."  
  
Josephine stared her, and Lara realized she had unintentionally sounded somewhat more uppity than she had intended. Why is it so difficult to get one's message clear without being misunderstood and mocked these days?  
  
"Your revenge? Implying that you'll shoot me? Come on, Lara, you can do better than that," Josephine whined sweetly.  
  
"I can do much better than that, I'll have you believe."  
  
"Werner Von Croy mentions in his book that you never tried to help him in Cambodia in the eighties when you two had your little accident -" Now what the bloody hell does this have to do with anything? Lara's mind screamed. Josephine continued; "Is that what you're going to do, then? Get what you want and feed me to the sharks. Cut my regulator tube?"  
  
Lara felt like screaming and ripping off her hair. How could Josephine be so stubborn in her view of her? It wasn't as if Lara' image of Josephine hadn't changed. Voluntarily. If you count being whacked in the head voluntary.  
  
"I won't shoot you, drown you or make you redundant. You're getting half of everything, and no bad feelings. You'll have your fifteen minutes of fame, I promise."  
  
"And what?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"You expect me to believe that? If they held world championships in lying you'd be disqualified." Josephine put her empty cup down on the sand and crossed her arms on her chest, waiting for Lara to reply.  
  
"I don't need any more bodies in my trail. Nor do I need more enemies. I do have a question to ask. It's not why you decided to give me a concussion. It goes: who is this mysterious financer of yours that wanted us to work together? Why?"  
  
Josephine couldn't help feeling she'd be humiliated if forced to reveal it all to Lara. Even though it was the first stupid mistake she remembered making. Everything was supposed to run so smoothly. Guess it never works like that with Lara, she caught herself thinking. Stop it. She isn't a supernatural force.  
  
"There is no financer. Except for the university. They made no conditions. It was an outright lie, I guess, but I'd have never caught your interest otherwise. I'm sorry."  
  
She's sorry? Lara didn't remember many times she'd have been that surprised. It was probably a taruf, as they said in Iran. A non-realistic compliment or promise.  
  
"I guessed," Lara lied. Was she getting old? She'd never been caught by such blatant lies before. A financer with a condition including partners? It wasn't common for Lara's employers to request or suggest that she got a partner for the quest, they all knew her well enough to know she would decline.  
  
Was it because Lara was so used to and thereby only skilled in unravelling male lies that any female gibberish went right through and settled in?  
  
Or maybe she truly was getting old. Lara watched Josephine pour some sand on the fire to put it out, and then walked to the jeep to inspect her gear. Her tanks were full, her BCD was intact, with no rips or leaks, her regulator worked. She didn't have an octopus - meaning an extra regulator for a possible diving partner in trouble. She usually dived alone, despite the risks. It didn't feel necessary to check her console - it was well- packed in its small velvet bag in her backpack. The rest was okay.  
  
Josephine had walked to the waterline and was washing her face. "Hell lot of salt here - have you got enough weights?"  
  
Lara nodded and scratched her elbow. "Have you got an extra regulator?"  
  
"Surprise, surprise that you don't. I know you work alone. Yes, I've got an extra."  
  
"Does that boat you've hired got a winch?" Lara asked.  
  
"I think so. Why?"  
  
"It's very difficult to drag bigger things out of wrecks. Anything bigger than your kneecap could be risky in these waters. I hope our captain is a skilled one." Lara gazed out to the sea. It was no wonder the coast had gotten its name from shipwrecks. The sea nearby the coast was filled with them. The waters were treacherous - without turning her head she could see dozens of sharp rocks protruding from the raging sea. She hoped Josephine knew where to go. Otherwise they could be stranded between wrecks and the sharp-rocked shoal. She hated to admit being worried. She felt insecure without her usual array of underwater maps, carefully planned notes and herself being in charge.  
  
"Josephine - I have to admit this whole affair looks risky. I assume you have a map of the area, and that you have planned this dive. I mean, look out there! If we hit those rocks or something happens to the boat I don't think we stand a chance of getting back here." Lara's way of archaeology was a dangerous one. But it didn't mean that she took unnecessary risks. She knew she could hold it together. She'd had worse. She didn't want anything to happen to Josephine. She was already starting to feel like watching over her in a way, and she hated it. It distracted her from the task at hand.  
  
"I've checked the maps, and I know where we're going." Mild lie. "I'm sure they sent us a good captain - they said he's a local fisherman. He should know about what to look out for. Something's saying it's unusual for you to worry like this."  
  
Lara leapt down from the back of the jeep. "I usually plan everything very carefully. Minimalize the risks. How much wreck experience do you actually have?"  
  
The dreaded question. "None."  
  
Lara stopped at her heels. "Excuse me?"  
  
Josephine swallowed. "Some?"  
  
Lara smiled sightly. "I almost thought I heard none. I take it not from these waters?"  
  
"Not from here, no."  
  
"Well, the water should be clear enough - I've dived at Ivory Coast and it was pretty clear there. And there shouldn't be much sharks to worry about. What's your tank size? Mine's twelve."  
  
"Twelve." Josephine swallowed again. What was she doing, even thinking about entering the wreck?  
  
She'd guessed Lara would chase her down. The only reason she had delayed the boat. Josephine Ross had never been one to take any risks. But if Lara could take them, why couldn't she? Of course, she'd at first decided to go on her own. But the coastline had scared her. She was maybe threading a risky path for a diver of her skills, but at least Lara would be there. The biggest problem would be to convince her about the usefulness of saving her if the situation called. Lara was unpredictable. There was nothing wrong with Josephine's nerves or her physique, even though she wasn't a living version of Catwoman like Lara. She could dive. Come on, woman. No time to feel remorseful. For once, just go with it. Even if it meant breaking every fucking rule in the diving book. "He should be here any minute."  
  
"Nice of you to mention. I have to change." Lara climbed back into the jeep, and soon Josephine heard the clattering of metal and things falling off the back as Lara was searching for something. "Pardon me for not being very organized this morning. I left in a hurry."  
  
Josephine looked up, and for her surprise saw Lara greeting her with a smug smile. How many times has this woman been whacked in the head already? She seems somehow used to it. "You could always change in the boat if you change into your swimmers here."  
  
After a few minutes Lara emerged from the jeep, wearing a perfectly form- fitting wetsuit. "Swimmers? If I tried to fit swimmers under this I'd get myself strangled. A bikini's all I can manage to squeeze underneath."  
  
"Special personal order?" Josephine had always settled for standard wetsuit sizes.  
  
"A little luxury never hurt anybody. Besides, I needed a certain kind of belt to house my holsters, and they had to change their model a bit to get it fitted." Lara clicked two pistols into the aforementioned leather holsters. Josephine didn't want to start thinking where Lara thought she'd need them.  
  
"Nice." Josephine went to change into her swimming suit and a wraparound. 


	7. 7 Preparations

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 7  
  
Lara sat on a pile of ropes in the bow of the ten-metres long, slightly rusty fishing boat. Josephine was briefing their captain in the small cabin only housing a broken chair and the helm. The sea raged around them with white-headed waves crashing onto the shore. The boat - despite its quite steady hull - was thrashing in the wind. It wasn't a tempest of any sorts - the waters around Skeleton Coast just were like that, Lara guessed. The sun was giving her a headache she was trying to shake off - she didn't want to take an Aspirin. Any distractions or drugs that might take the edge off her judgement or cautiousness would form a risk. Despite the fact that Josephine withheld all the location information, Lara was in charge. She wouldn't have it any other way.  
  
She stood up for a second to gaze into the depths. They were a good half kilometre away from the beach, but she could still see sharp rocks underneath the boat every once in awhile in the dim waters. She had her doubts about Josephine's diving skills. But if she wanted to get herself killed, she would be free to do just that.  
  
Lara still couldn't understand Josephine. Why go into all this trouble? Her half-mocking, half-admiring attitude also made her annoying in Lara's eyes for she had no idea what waved behind those green eyes. At times the feeling that Josephine was sort of her personal stalker flickered through her mind. She did seem to know a lot about her. At the same time it seemed as if she had deliberately ignored the most important facts.  
  
Lara did not despise of Josephine's way of work. Maybe it didn't bring her interviews or popularity outside the scientifical field, but to Lara those had only given a migraine. She was taken by Josephine's enthusiasm, though. Enthusiasm towards seeing her at work. That was what she was getting, but somehow Lara felt it wasn't exactly what Josephine had expected. It was always so straightforward with men. They usually either thought with their midland section, did what they had been told, or were opportunists only interested in the job. Of course there was exceptions. Like Jean.  
  
Lara hated being poked in the brain by someone who thought a bit like her. Like a woman.  
  
Lara crossed her legs. She secretly envied Josephine's white peaked cap. At least it kept the sun off her face.  
  
Lara somehow stubbornly wished she could tell Josephine about what she'd done in the past. To explain to her why she was who she was. As far as Josephine was concerned, she was a snotty brat with guns blazing and stealing everyone else's credits. Lara wanted to tell her about Set. About the Dagger of Xian - even though she'd written a book about it. She'd understandably left quite a lot out of it. Dragons? You couldn't write that in a book. Lara wasn't really annoyed by the fact that Josephine wasn't very fond of her. She was only disturbed by the fact that she was stuck with so many prejudices she could never truly see what she did and why. It was enough to have intelligent enemies. Stubborn and simple enemies - Larson was enough, thank you very much.  
  
She had never quite understood this side of her. What did she care if Dr. Josephine Ross despised of her? It was just that she liked her slightly. Was willing to put up with her. She was unquestionably intelligent, and Lara was sure it wasn't like her to do unplanned things. Lara was taken by the fact she could make Josephine make such uncharacteristic things. I seem to bring out the worst in her.  
  
The boat stopped, and Lara heard a splash - most likely the anchor. Josephine walked up to the bow, her wraparound skirt dancing in the wind. "Time to strap up, Lara. You look a bit sunburnt."  
  
Maybe because I am sunburnt. "Your tanks full?"  
  
Josephine nodded.  
  
Lara stood up, and grabbed her BCD vest. After attaching it to the regulator and the tanks she strapped it firmly on, checking the inflatable pockets and adjusting it. She had to wiggle it a bit to ensure a pleasant fit around her chest. A Senegalese-looking man in his mid-fourties - their captain, walked to the deck, and picked up Josephine's vest and tank to help her get it strapped on. Josephine then picked up her bag, and passed a flat object to Lara. It was a writing board of some sorts, with a black pen tied to it with a piece of chain.  
  
"It's an underwater slate. This way we won't have to use signs all the time."  
  
Lara had to admit it looked useful.  
  
"Hey - I figured a handsign for 'Lara'."  
  
Lara raised her brows. Josephine crossed three fingers, pointed her thumbs upwards and her forefingers forwards - resembling a gun. She laughed, and started pulling on her fins.  
  
Lara shook her head, amused, and clicked on her weights. After that followed the tanks and the regulator, and the mask, which she left on her forehead to see if Josephine was finished. "What's our time limit? I'd guess there are at least average currents."  
  
"Two hours?"  
  
"Sounds reasonable. Could you please explain that to our dear captain?" Lara pointed at the man smoking his pipe at the back of the boat.  
  
Josephine lumbered to the back in her fins - she could have taken them off for a second -, exchanged a few words with the captain, and returned to Lara, who was adjusting her mask on her face. Josephine began with the same maneuver, but soon she flinched, and tilted her head back, turning her backside to Lara. "Shit, I got my hair caught in the buckle." Lara twisted it off. In her opinion Josephine was acting somewhat nervously.  
  
Lara bended down, careful not to let the tank put her off balance, dug her bag and pulled out a pair of fingerless leather gloves and a large metal case. To Josephine's amazement in contained a stainles steel harpoon and a serrated diving knife. Lara strapped the knife onto her calf. The harpoon found its place strapped to her tanks.  
  
"You think we'll be needing those?" Josephine asked in a worried voice.  
  
"You never know," Lara commented, and sat on the railing with her back to the raging sea. She picked up the writing slate. "Ready?"  
  
The captain waited for Josephine's nod, and dropped a net sack witha wooden box, tied to a rope to the depths. Then he started unwinding a 200 metre roll of rope.  
  
"Like a boy scout." Josephine sat down on the railing, Lara counted to three, and they let themselves fall off the boat.  
  
The sky disappeared, and Lara's world filled with tiny bubbles, water- filtered sunlight and muffled sounds. She made sure the netsack was falling right down to the bottom, kicked herself to the surface, checked that Josephine was okay, then pointed her thumbs downwards to indicate going down. No need to use the slate yet, even though it looked inviting.  
  
They left the surface with Lara in the lead. The waves had no effect after a few metres, even though they did play a certain role in underwater currents. A minute later Lara's console read six metres. She turned to face Josephine, pointed in her ears, and they balanced the air pressures in their midears by blowing hard into their noses. Josephine gave Lara an okay sign, and they continued downwards.  
  
Some more minutes Lara stopped to blow off water from her mask, and took a good look around. Josephine was kicking and turning around her like a lost mermaid - Lara had to admit she had a good technique. Lara continued downwards. After a few seconds she saw light flickering strangely off some surface. When you dive, colours disappear one after another, and objects seem bigger and closer than they really are. Everything becomes a murky blue-grey haze until you reach the bottom when you're hitting more than twenty metres.  
  
As they continued their steady dive towards the bottom, Lara saw what had caught sunlight the minute before.  
  
It was a ship. A terribly ghostly sight in the endless ocean. First it was like a rusty shadow that clearly gave the idea of something man-made. The first clear glimpse of it brought to mind Titanic, with its large frontline and height. Of course it wasn't half as large as the infamous cruiser, but still looked as uninviting. Lara stopped to light her diving lamp and Josephine did the same. Lara tried to make out the expression on her face but the mask hid all signs of fear or awe - and also those of excitement. Lara's depth meter on her console read sixty metres. Soon they reached the deck. It was rusty, and looked as if it was about to collapse any minute. There was no doubt about the reason of the ship's sinking - a long, gaping hole in the left side of the deck probably continued all the way down to the bottom. Like so many before and after it, it ran agroung - hit the sharp rocks the coast was famous for.  
  
The ship might've been a terrible sight, but to Lara it was all too familiar and inviting. After all, she had been to the bottom of the Bering sea in a deep-sea suit and nothing could match that somehow helpless, claustrophobic feeling when her tank had clanked on a rock and started to leak. And it hadn't been the least bit of a relief to know that the nearest asylum from the lethal pressure and drowning was a sinking Soviet submarine.  
  
Lara decided to use the writing slate.  
  
HANDSOME, ISN'T SHE?  
  
Josephine replied with her slate. ARE YOU SURE IT'S SAFE?  
  
Lara was surprised. She hadn't been too sure if she believed that Josephine had experience in wreck diving. On the other hand, even the best can panic. She didn't seem to be panicking, though. She probably just needed a spiritual kick in the bottom.  
  
WELL, WE CAN'T TURN BACK NOW THAT WE'VE COME THIS FAR, Lara's slate soon read.  
  
With everything necessary said, Lara put down the slate, and started approaching the deck. Josephine had no other alternative than to follow.  
  
It was a freighter, no doubt about it. There were no remains of safety railings on the deck, there were no cannons or other armoury, and two enormous latches closed the cargo doors. A shoal of silvery fishes swam past Lara as she touched a barrel secured on the deck with long-gone ropes. Josephine kept behind her like a wailing ghost. Somewhere further the living quarters shimmered behind the murky waters. Lara checked her watch. They'd been underwater for twenty minutes.  
  
Lara scribbled a message on the slate. COULD YOU GO AND CHECK FOR THE NAME?  
  
Josephine nodded slowly. She didn't look worried, Lara noticed. It felt relieving that Josephine was holding up. Lara was used to challenging dives and loved them. Not that this one had been of any challenge so far.  
  
Josephine disappeared below the deckline, and a slight worry crossed Lara's mind. This was what she hated about diving in pairs or with a team. When they're in your sight they annoy you, and when they're out of sight, you get worried.  
  
Josephine returned after a few minutes. Lara had managed to keep herself from taking a look down from the deck to ensure that she was alright. Josephine turned her slate towards Lara.  
  
DAKOTA. IT'S THE RIGHT ONE.  
  
Lara gave her a thumbs-up. This was getting interesting. She took a last look to make sure the netsack rope was somewhere nearby. It continued down to the bottom near the left side of the deck. Lara hoped that it didn't tackle into anything. She dug out her slate again.  
  
She pointed towards the living quarters. LET'S GO.  
  
Josephine gave her a thumbs-up, feeling a lump developing in her throat. Quickly, she started swimming after Lara, who had already taken a sprint towards the back of the ship.  
  
Josephine had to admit she wasn't comfortable in the environment she had gotten herself in. The ghostly site of the ship had first almost made her return to the surface. True, she had a diving instructor's certificate, but she'd always considered sunken ships such terrible sights she had never wanted to go near one. It was like she had never wanted to dive under ice. She didn't want to be trapped inside anything that might collapse.  
  
Lara seemed to be the complete opposite. She seemed to be enjoying herself.  
  
She had to admire the Croft woman. She really knew her fins, so to say. She moved gracefully, swimming like a dolphin even with the extra gear - including the harpoon - strapped to her BCD. Josephine had carried a harpoon thrice, on a diving holiday to Baja California when they - she and her ex-husband Ray - had went deepsea-fishing. He'd taught her most of what she knew about diving. He'd been a navy SEAL, and always away from home unlike Josephine, who took care that she never worked too much overtime with her research. Lara probably didn't even recognize the concept of overwork. She seemed to work around the clock.  
  
As she followed Lara, she let her lamplight wander on the deck. It was empty, except for some crabs, and some ropes thick enough to resist decaying and hungry marine life. Josephine could imagine what sounds the corroding steel might've made if water carried such voices. Wailing, creeking, ghostly cries and clanks.  
  
She shook her head free from such disturbing thoughts and continued.  
  
Lara was waiting for her near a doorway, with an enthusiastic smile visible on her face even behind the mask. Together they carefully dragged it open, to avoid it tagging onto their gear, and so they entered the dark corridor. The living quarters weren't usually very large in cargo ships. An angry- looking light-orange eel swam past them at the doorway.  
  
All kinds of rubble floated inside the ship. It was hard to tell whether they were the remains of crewmen's belongings or just seabottom detritus. All signs of human life were long gone. Only fish now inhabited the freighter.  
  
Lara took the lead once again, and they continued diving. 


	8. 8 From the depths

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 8  
  
First they dived up the stairs to inspect the crew deck. Upstairs they noticed that the window glasses were gone so they could have entered through the window holes. Lara took a missing look, and Josephine turned around to see what the white thing he'd seen in the corner was.  
  
She streched out her hand to the darkness to grab it. She brought it in front of her face. A skull. A sudden shiver went up and down her spine, and she didn't even notice dropping it. It floated peacefully down to the wooden floor, its mouth in a grimace.  
  
Josephine tried to calm her nerves. Now that had been something she didn't like meeting underwater. The sacrificial well she had dived to in Mexico had only housed a couple of bones, no intact skulls. She wondered briefly how terrifying it would be to come across a floating body. She abandoned the thought. It made her even more uneasy. She was on the edge already.  
  
Lara had finished her inspection, and waved her to swim closer. Lara had noticed a map in bad shape under a cracked glass. It was a map of the ship. Lara pointed at the largest cargo holds and shook her head. Logical. Why would they have hidden valuables in the midst of pineapples or whatever they had been transporting? Then Lara pointed at a small storage hall. It was at the end of a corridor of some sorts, but the water had eaten the map so harshly only the outer shape of the storage room was visible.  
  
ARE YOU SURE? Josephine wrote to her slate with a shaky hand she hoped Lara wouldn't notice.  
  
Lara shook her head, grinning more playfully then evilly, and started making her way down the stairs. The walls and the decoration were made of wood, which hadn't put up with the ship's watery grave very well. If you touched a chair or a railing, it collapsed and broke into shards - the water pressure had been the only thing keeping it together. Josephine startled everytime a wooden surface gave way under her touch. Lara didn't even notice such things. Josephine decided she was probably so concentrated in what she was doing. She felt like a distraction to Lara.  
  
Soon they arrived in a new hallway. Josephine became slightly worried for she couldn't figure out how Lara could have led them down the already familiar staircase and arrive in an alien place. Until she remembered they had diven down twice as far as they had upstairs. Keep it together, woman. She tried hard to fight against the feeling of being inside something that was slowly wailing and collapsing, threatening to make her another victim of this frightful wreck.  
  
They started following a corridor. Lara peeked inside some small side rooms that appeared to be sleeping cabins, but obviously wasn't too happy with their content. She kept checking her watch every three minutes like a responsible diver. So did Josephine - only more often.  
  
Josephine peeked inside one doorway, and pointed her lamp blankly inside.  
  
If she could have screamed she would have. A group of skeletons, dancing silently in the water. Josephine dropped her lamp, and quickly recovered it, having the gnawing feeling that something was haunting this sunken vessel.  
  
At the other end of the corridor, Lara was waiting for her more or less patiently.  
  
Lara held onto a door handle as she waited for Josephine. How could it take such a long time for her to dive down one goddamned hallway? She even peeked inside a cabin Lara had already checked. Nothing but bones. Sleeping cabins mostly never withheld anything of interest. Some light came in from a broken window at the end of the corridor. Lara appreciated the sight of natural light. It eased the feeling of being very deep.  
  
Josephine finally arrived next to her, looking somewhat shaken. Lara checked her watch. They had been underwater for fifty-five minutes. Good enough. Lara dug out her slate.  
  
I HAVE A HUNCH ABOUT THIS ROOM. YOU OK?  
  
Josephine simply nodded, taking a restless look around. Even if she was nervous she was keeping it down giftedly. Lara tried the handle. Locked. She waved for Josephine to back up a bit, and tried yanking it open. It didn't work. Then she dug out a small master key from her knife strap. She pushed it into the lock, and the soft, rusty iron gave way. Another thumbs- up from both of them. Lara was the first to enter - Josephine hesitated, not being able to help herself from trying to avoid possible bony inhabitants of the metallic grave.  
  
Lara let go of the doorway and concentrated on the insides of the small room. It was pitch dark, and some remains of wooden crates were shattered all over the floor. Grime and gunk filled the floor. Lara lowered her hand to touch the dirt that water and rust had sprinkled from the walls and the ceiling.  
  
A small cloud of dirt hovered away, and a sight for the gods greeted Lara.  
  
Gold.  
  
In the form of a death mask clearly embodying Egyptian style. Lara pulled Josephine into the small cabin, and picked up the glorious death mask. They shared a heartful smile, and started whisking away more dirt. A small case that now was a small pile of rottened wood housed a necklace and a headband made of gold and lapis lazul. Josephine found a pair of small but delicate earrings. Unfortunately they broke to pieces from her touch. She gathered the pieces and stuffed them inside the sleeve of her wetsuit. Lara stopped to admire the death mask, seriously knowing it would make a great war between the two of them - and the two museums responsibly for the financing. Well, I always have my pistols, Lara thought, more of a joke than seriously.  
  
The mask wasn't heavy underwater, and it was difficult to estimate its weight out of water. Some more jewellery was found, and even a pair of what probably were sacrificial daggers inlaid with red stones. It was a magnificent sight. Lara dug out her slate.  
  
YOU WAIT HERE WHILE I GO GET THE NET A BIT CLOSER?  
  
Josephine shook her head. Lara couldn't make her stay nor could she fail to notice her nervousness - she had already asked once if she was okay. She was going to be okay as soon as she got out of the living quarters - back into open water.  
  
Lara's slate answered YOU GO GET THE NET THEN.  
  
Josephine dived away, leaving Lara alone in the storage room that had been turned into a treasure chamber. She returned soon, to find Lara holding the mask with most of the necklaces hanging from her wrist. Josephine recovered the rest of the things, and together they dived out of the corridor and to the deck, onto where Josephine had pulled the netsack. They opened the wooden box, inserted all the smaller objects carefully, and closed it. The death mask could hold its own and was big enough not to fall off between the netholes. It felt terrible to leave the sack down until they had surfaced, but pulling the rope at such depths wouldn't have moved the rope above the surface at all - the sailor wouldn't have noticed anything.  
  
They secured the sack, then Lara turned to face the living quarters once more, as if saying goodbyes to the structure.  
  
Josephine looked up to the surface. Most of the sunlight was gone. It couldn't have gotten dark - they had only been diving for one hour and twenty-two minutes. It was two-o'clock in the afternoon. Lara returned to her side. Josephine pointed up. Lara nodded and started kicking. Josephine realized Lara had misunderstood her signal - understandably - and pulled her back. Lara kicked her, probably a reflex useful in case of enraged bigger fishes or squids. Luckily she noticed Josephine and turned. Josephine showed Lara her slate.  
  
DO YOU THINK WE'VE HIT A STORM? LOOK UP  
  
Lara did as told, and then dug out her board. IT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT WE HAVE TO GO UP. YES, I THINK IT'S A STORM.  
  
Lara and Josephine started slowly releasing air into their BCDs, and began kicking slowly towards the surface. They stopped four times to let the pressure come to balance.  
  
Finally they were three metre from the surface, following the netsack line. They could see the waves now - metres high and posing a serious risk when they would come to about one metre from surface - the current could push them under the boat bottom. The anchor had held quite nicely, even though it wasn't in the bottom but some fifty metres below surface. It seemed to be heavy enough to keep the boat still.  
  
They dived a few feet away from the hull, and then surfaced. They took off their mouthpieces. Lara yelled, and the captain noticed them. He threw them a set of rope ladder, and they slowly and painstakingly climbed up to the neck with their heavy gear as the waves thrashed the ladder around.  
  
Josephine let out a sigh of sheer relief when she got the rocking boat deck underneath her fins. She hadn't had time to take off her mask in the sea, so she tore it off her face and strapped herself rid of the tanks and the vest. It was drizzling lightly, and the wind was strong but not strong enough to knock them over on the deck. The sailor returned to the cabin without saying a word. The simple man was probably giving them peace to change clothes.  
  
Lara packed everything, and pulled her pilot jacket over her wetsuit. She didn't intend to change anything more. It wasn't raining anymore, but the wind hadn't calmed down a bit. Josephine stripped onto her swimming suit, carefully moving the earrings from her wetsuit sleeve to her jeans pocket, and pulled on a woolly sweater and jeans. Then they shouted to the Senegalean, and he returned to the deck, going straight to grab the netsack rope. After a nod from both women, he started winching it up. Lara began helping as the sack became heavier when approaching the surface. Finally, for the sailor's great surprise, they hauled the sack with its valuable content on the deck.  
  
After wrapping the jewelry and the deathmask into plastic, they sat down in the bow and the boat began its way towards the shore. Lara sat silently and Josephine couldn't help fingering the earrings she'd found.  
  
Was this what Lara did for living? Priviledged bastard. Josephine understood the lure of adventuring - that was exactly how her father had earned his living. Nowadays everything that was valuable and exciting seemed to have been found, packaged and sold to museums - including adventure. Josephine had long been certain that Indiana Jones - fictious or not - had been the last great adventuring archaeologist.  
  
Until there was Lara Croft. She led a lifestyle Josephine hadn't thought possible. Where did she manage to dig up undiscovered temples for every day of the week, she had wondered. Lara also seemed to carry those guns around everywhere - something rather unusual and sinister for a modern archaeologist. Did she often have to use them? She did, if you believed her books. Lara Croft in the lead, guest starring thugs, murderous monks and dinosaurs. A world far from Josephine's home in downtown Chicago. The only beast lurking around the house was Ray's cat Caligula. The ultimate proof of what an ass he had been - and probably still was. Left his cat behind when he left. Such a sweet cat, despite having been named after an insane Roman ruler.  
  
Lara was clearly good at what she was doing. And she had her heart in it all the time. It was something you probably grew into involuntarily or otherwise - not something you adopted from courses or in a university. Lara had had her plane crash.  
  
The boat turned and now they were facing waves sideways. The movements knocked Lara continuously towards the railing, and due to the unpleasantness of it she stood up, stretching and yawning. She turned to look at Josephine, who was gently cleaning the gem of the left earring with the hem corner of her sweater. Josephine looked up and faced Lara. Something near the corner of her range of sight seemed wrong.  
  
The wind had broken the rope keeping the fishing net scaffold located in the far front of the ship in place. Now it was swinging uncontrollably - towards Lara. Josephine dropped the earring.  
  
"Lara - loook - "  
  
Too late, as things often go. Josephine watched in sheer horror as the scaffold iron knocked the wind out of Lara's lungs, making her cry out in pain, and causing her to take a quick step backwards - one step too far, causing her to fall over the railing to the waves. Josephine rushed to grab her, but she was already gone. Her brain calling for a snap decision, Josephine looked at the death mask, the strange-looking sailor, then looked at the sea, and jumped, aware that she was choosing between helping Lara and the golden mask with intricate carvings and embedded stones. 


	9. 9 Josephine's absolution

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 9  
  
She hit the cold water hard, forgetting to draw in a breath before she plunged underwater. She fought her way back to the surface, and looked around. No signs of Lara. The boat was still moving away - the last advance payment Josephine Ross was going to make. She dipped her head under the surface, a wave throwing her up and down. She dived down towards something that did not look like seaweed, and pulled it to the surface with all her might.  
  
A split second after her, her arm steady in Josephine's grip, Lara burst into the surface, coughing and spluttering. Josephine stared at her, ignoring the waves, making sure she was alright. Lara blew her nose, and started doing backstrokes with her left hand. The other she crossed on her chest, grimacing.  
  
"I think I might have cracked a rib," she yelled to Josephine who was doing breaststrokes after her. "Hell's Bells Ross, why did you jump in after me?"  
  
So this is how Lara Croft says 'thank you for pulling my wonderful personality out of the depths'.  
  
"If you had drowned, guess who would be the one facing all the blaming fingers," Josephine yelled, the salty water seeping into her eyes causing her to blink. "Wouldn't want - " she coughed as a wave crashes on her, causing her to swallow some water - "want everyone thinking I threw you overboard."  
  
"See that round rock? We could going that way. Seems like less rocks in that direction. Try swimming sideways according to the waves, so ---" the water drowned Lara's voice.  
  
"WHAT?" Josephine yelled, swimming so hard her neck muscles nearly cramped. Her body was definitely not designed with this in mind.  
  
"Swim sideways so that the waves don't crash on you and throw-" Lara drew a quick breath - "throw you on the rocks."  
  
They were some 500 metres from the shore. It was difficult to keep one direction in the waves. They continued swimming, their ragged breaths rhytmical and exhausted. Lara continued backstroke, twisting her neck so she could see where she was going, and Josephine kept to her side, the weight of her wet jeans and sweater pulling her down constantly. Taking them off was no option in this surge.  
  
Nearer the shore, sharp underwater rocks scraped their legs. One made a three-inch cut in Josephine's knee, causing her to nearly faint from the sudden loss of blood. Lara continued, her right hand still draped around her ribcage where the scaffold rail had hit her. They passed the shoreline shipwreck slowly. A flock of white, seagull-like birds had taken over the upturned hull of the rusty skeletal remains of the ship.  
  
Every once in awhile Lara's or Josephine's leg hit bottom only to be greeted with sharp rocks and even sharper seashells.  
  
"Kingdom for a jetski," Josephine yelled to Lara, and grabbed her by the arm again to pull her away from a treacherous rock Lara had failed to notice.  
  
"Jetskis wouldn't hold up in this kind of wind," Lara yelled back.  
  
"Spoilsport," Josephine yelled and felt her leg hit bottom again. This time it was sandy. And it wasn't just a single rock - they were in low water. "Lara, stand up."  
  
Lara took a couple more strokes, then scrambled up on her feet. She tripped over, falling face down in the water, then climbed back up on her feet again. They waded to the shore, and collapsed on the dry sand, which the wind was blowing around. They lied still for some minutes. Josephine shielded her face with her hand - the sun was coming out again.  
  
"Hey Lara - is this what your normal workday includes?"  
  
Lara coughed and turned to her side, exhausted. "Only every second workday."  
  
"Think we'll ever see the mask again?"  
  
"I'm certain of it."  
  
"How?" Josephine asked, raising her brows.  
  
"I have my ways," Lara promised mysteriously, slumping back on her back. "Now I'm going to ask you something. Why, for Christ'ssake did you hit me with that chair leg?"  
  
Josephine laughed, letting the back of her head hit the moist sand. "I expected you to shoot me for it, not ask about it after being stranded on a beach like a pair of whales."  
  
"May it be marked down on the record that I personally resent that comparison."  
  
"Okay, here goes. I wanted to work with you. "  
  
Lara chuckled.  
  
"Shut up. This is an honest woman talking."  
  
Lara cleared her throat. "You could've just asked. It's not necessary to first fool me and then hit me in the head. It's not nice."  
  
"And that is an understatement. I wanted to work with you because I'm interested in how you pull the stunts that bring you fame and fortune. I wanted to know what kind of a person turns her senior thesis two years prior to the rest of us. I figured I couldn't get you here just by asking. True, the papers belonged to my father but he wasn't perfect. The first lead was a cul-de-sac. I met the man my father had talked to and gotten his obviously false information about Malawi. I met him at the bar, before I tried to drink you under the table."  
  
"I never agreed to try to outdrink you."  
  
"True. Anyway, I knew the treatment I would've probably gotten from you if I had told you I had been wrong about Malawi -"  
  
Lara interrupted her. "What treatment? You seriously think I don't go chasing wild geese every once in awhile?"  
  
"Let me continue for Chrissakes, Lara. I realized it would sound a lot better if you had missed something and stayed chasing those birds of yours in Malawi, while I had begun following the right lead here after disagreeing with you."  
  
Lara opened her eyes and raised her brows, finally understanding the whole picture. "And in your little head you somehow boiled up that if Lara Croft failed to prevent herself from getting hit in the head by another woman, she'd be too damned embarrassed to admit it and would have left your story uncorrected?"  
  
"I knew you weren't just a pretty face."  
  
Lara smiled vaguely and looked askance at Josephine. "Your dear brother-in- law once said that to me. I promised to break his nose for it."  
  
"I know. I also know you hated it when he called you bottom bony."  
  
"Yes, that was the phrase. Feel free to indulge me more about your little brainstorm back in Monkey Bay."  
  
"I knew that you'd hunt me down so I had to be quick. I actually was a bit worried I had whacked you out till kingdom come."  
  
"I'm honored for your concern," Lara said in a neutral tone. She sat up and scratched her hairline. Sand fell out her now-dry hair and dissolved plait. "You know Josephine, what you failed to notice was that I never had personally anything against you. Godawful, I hardly knew who you were until that banquet. You wanted my attention and you got it. It's strange how much you actually know about me, by the way."  
  
"Cut it, Lara. I'm not your fan. We still have to decide what to do about our discovery."  
  
"Surprisingly enough you got the pronoun 'we' right," Lara said with a tired voice, and stood up. Josephine patted sand off her clothes and followed Lara towards the jeep that was surprisingly near.  
  
Lara turned back to face her. "We'll do this the Croft way. You'll finally see the side of me you've been so eager to advertise." 


	10. 10 Spirits raised

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money with this work of fiction.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.  
  
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)  
  
Chapter 10  
  
It was only late afternoon, so they took the jeep and drove to the nearest town with the airport. A quick check at the airport office ensured that no planes had taken off that day. Their findings were still in the area. Then they parked the jeep in front of a local bar. They hadn't bothered to change away from their sandy wetsuits, just pulled on their shoes - Josephine her sneakers and Lara her Pathforgers.. Besides, the suprise factor would be on their side. Before they entered, Lara pulled her other pistol from the holster and threw it to Josephine. Lara was still keeping her other arm slightly raised to support her ribcage.  
  
"Just for the looks of it," she said, and Josephine swore she saw Lara wink at her.  
  
They entered the crummy little bar. Old men were sitting at the counter, and the bartender was a young black man with a bandanna wrapped around his head. Josephine and Lara sat down to the bar stools.  
  
"How can I help you, ladies?" he asked and seemed amused as he noticed their outfits.  
  
Josephine spoke. "We're looking for Manis who hires his fishing boat around the bay."  
  
"He's in the corner table behind the palm tree," the bartender said and started polishing a glass with a dirty rag in a way only bartenders do.  
  
Josephine and Lara thanked, got up, and walked to the corner table. Their captain was smoking and enjoying a glass of whisky from an uncivilizedly full glass. Lara coughed to her fist. Josephine leaned on the table. The man turned, and his eyes widened.  
  
"You --- you ---"  
  
"If you are implying that we are a pair of ghosts then you've received the wrong piece of information. But we are haunting you alright," Lara replied with an icy voice.  
  
"Where's the stuff we recovered today?" Josephine asked sternly, noticing Lara unclipping her holster press-stud.  
  
"I no have it. I sell it."  
  
"You have two choices, " Lara spat out like a snake, "Either you give back to me and my lady friend here what you sailed away in your little sardine can or I give you an extra mouth to feed. Understood?"  
  
"I no have it!" The man yelled.  
  
Josephine smiled secretly under the hand she used to cover her mouth with. She could only guess what a furious Lara might do.  
  
Lara jumped on the table, sending the man's glass of whisky crashing on the floor. She grabbed him by his shirt collar, and pulled him up, pressing her pistol stedy under his chin.  
  
"I don't appreciate repeating things."  
  
The man suddenly seemed to remember something. "In my car."  
  
Lara put down her pistols, and dragged the man out of the bar, blowing a quick, playful kiss to the bartender, who waved after them.  
  
Outside, the man walked like a servant dog to his car, pulled out a sack, and dropped it to Lara's feet.  
  
"And now - start running," Lara hissed theatrically. The man needed not hear it again. He was gone soon, only leaving a trail of sand in his wake.  
  
Lara opened the sack. The deathmask and the small wooden box.  
  
"What about our gear?" Josephine asked.  
  
Lara walked up to the man's blue, much-suffered Sedan. "It's all here. He wasn't smart enough to sell it. Not that there are many people willing to buy this kind of stuff around here. They always try to steal everything," Lara was musing to herself, "Always. Simple people."  
  
Josephine stood a foot away from the car. Lara found her backpack and started dragging the rest of their gear out.  
  
"If I didn't know better I'd say that man got pretty near to getting himself shot."  
  
"Not at all."  
  
"What do you mean? Are you saying the great archaeologist Lara Croft is becoming a soft sod these days?"  
  
"No. I'm saying he got very near to getting himself shot," Lara replied, smiling.  
  
"Why didn't you shoot me, really?" Josephine asked matter-of-factly.  
  
Lara stopped her fussing with the gear to look at Josephine. "You'll get the answer by answering my question."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Josephine, what's the meaning of life?"  
  
"How the hell should I know?"  
  
"There you have it."  
  
~ - ~ - ~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ - ~ -~ -  
  
A week later The British Museum's new Great Hall roof was getting raised. Garret Graham stood in what used to be the entrance to the ethnographic wing, and admired the glass structure. Two weeks more, and they could open the Hall. He walked down the stairs and to the entrance hall, dodging workmen on the way. Digging out his keycard required upon entering the staff wing from his pocket he greeted the ticket sellers on the way. It was sleeting outside, so only a few people were wandering around in the exhibitions. A quiet day to finish some paperwork. Garret rode the elevator up and used his keycard again to retrieve his mail from the box near the door. Then he walked to his office, leafing through envelopes and piles of paper someone had decided to fill his mailbox with again. He put on his reading glasses, and got ready to insert the keycard once again to access the office.  
  
The door was open. He forgot about the mail and peeked in. To an archaeologist a riddle is a riddle is a riddle. You have to devote to every one of them fully, otherwise they usually won't crack. Like with that Greek amphora piece two years earlier.  
  
He couldn't see anything from outside. It was his office after all. Holding his mail in his left hand, he stepped in.  
  
Dr. Lara Croft was sitting in his guest chair, one arm immobilized against her chest with a supporting strap, and Dr. Josephine Ross of Chicago University sat on his desk, feet raised onto the handcushions of the chair Lara was sitting in. Josephine was holding something with her both hands - it was large and round, wrapped in plastic and fabric. Lara had a small wooden box in her lap. They both smiled at him.  
  
"Ladies," he greeted politely, "How was your trip?"  
  
Lara put the wooden box on the table and together with Josephine, ripped the fabric and plastic off the object, uncovering a golden funeral mask inlaid with valuable stones.  
  
"Eventful," Lara replied, and shared a knowing look with Josephine.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
I would like to express my humblest gratitude to the following people who never fail to amaze me and truly make my day:  
  
Tim Radley. Dear, dear friend, fellow author, editing help and kind Internet spirit. Where would I (and Lara) be without you?  
  
Jeppe. One of the most inspiring people I've ever met. Your sharpest wit and your wonderful and constructive criticism (and praise, if I'm having a good day ;=) keep me down to Earth and raise me to the skies.  
  
SilverRope. For setting yet another standard of quality in TR writing with your works and being a great person to talk to.  
  
Percy Balemans and William Pelser, my guides in scuba diving, who tirelessly answered my questions and supported my attempt at describing a wonderful sport I only have limited experience in. I admire and envy what you have experienced.  
  
Feedback? That's what makes us authors write. All feedback is welcomed at Siirma6@surfeu.fi 


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